Rhett Ayers Butler

Rhett Ayers Butler

Website

About

Rhett Butler is the founder and CEO of Mongabay.

Rhett founded Mongabay out of his passion for wildlife and wild places.

He has traveled widely in the tropics and enjoys photography, hiking, and scuba-diving.

LinkedIn Profile | Personal website | Contact

Some background on Mongabay's origin:

RSS
2007 stories
Tree Aid’s efforts as part of the Great Green Wall has resulted in planting nearly 28 million trees in the region so far.

Navigating the complex world of reforestation efforts

Rhett Ayers Butler 16 Dec 2025

From Kalimantan’s haze to Jakarta’s grit: A journalist’s journey

Rhett Ayers Butler 15 Dec 2025
Survivors inspect clothings they salvaged at a village affected by a flash flood in Batang Toru, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)

Sumatra’s ‘natural’ disaster wasn’t natural: How deforestation turned a rare cyclone catastrophic

Rhett Ayers Butler 15 Dec 2025
Photo © California Academy of Sciences

Chris Grinter has spent much of his life surrounded by insects

Rhett Ayers Butler 11 Dec 2025
Iain Douglas-Hamilton. Image courtesy Save the Elephants.

Iain Douglas-Hamilton, elephant protector, has died at 83

Rhett Ayers Butler 9 Dec 2025
Deforestation in Borneo, Malaysia. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

Balancing evidence and empathy in an age of doubt

Rhett Ayers Butler 9 Dec 2025
Courtesy of Grupo de Intervención en Altura.

Cristina Gallardo, 39, a devoted guardian of Spain’s wild places, is lost to a fall

Rhett Ayers Butler 7 Dec 2025
Bamboo lemur in Madagascar. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Lemurs are at risk. So are the people protecting them.

Rhett Ayers Butler 7 Dec 2025

How dropping ads set us free to focus on impact

Rhett Ayers Butler 5 Dec 2025
Gregg Treinish in Botswana's Okavango. Photo by Shah Selbe

Turning adventure into data

Rhett Ayers Butler 4 Dec 2025
Jean Beasley with the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center with a juvenile Kemp's Ridley sea turtle on Sept. 17, 2013 in Surf City, N.C. Photo courtesy of KEN BLEVINS/STARNEWS

Jean Beasley, who turned her young daughter’s dying wish into a mission to save sea turtles, has died

Rhett Ayers Butler 3 Dec 2025
Early-career conservationists take part in the 2025 EDGE Conservation Tools Course, part of a global fellowship program that supports emerging leaders to drive locally led conservation. Image by Paul Barnes /EDGE of Existence, Zoological Society of London.

Small grants can empower the next generation of conservationists

Rhett Ayers Butler 1 Dec 2025
Screenshot of Gramma. Courtesy of the San Diego Zoo.

The long life of a Galápagos tortoise

Rhett Ayers Butler 29 Nov 2025

Lemurs are being eaten as an urban delicacy in Madagascar

Rhett Ayers Butler 28 Nov 2025

How religious beliefs may help protect Mentawai’s forests

Rhett Ayers Butler 27 Nov 2025
Bambang Hero Saharjo and Basuki Wasis, two environmental experts from IPB University, after the first hearing of their lawsuit against their testimony at the Cibinong District Court,

In Indonesia’s courts, truth can be a lonely witness

Rhett Ayers Butler 25 Nov 2025
A forest fire in August 2025 in the Brazilian state of Rondônia. Image © Marizilda Cruppe/Greenpeace.

Weather disasters are surging in the Amazon. Reporting isn’t.

Rhett Ayers Butler 24 Nov 2025
Illegal air strips identified during the investigation.

Mongabay Latam wins the Global Shining Light Award for investigative journalism

Rhett Ayers Butler 23 Nov 2025
Vicente Fernandes Vilhalva. Photo courtesy of Aty Guasu/Survival International

A killing with precedent: Kaiowá man’s murder fits a pattern in Brazil

Rhett Ayers Butler 21 Nov 2025

Bearing witness to Indonesia’s environmental challenges: Sapariah Saturi

Rhett Ayers Butler 21 Nov 2025
Pokigron and Atjoni villages beside the Suriname River. Image courtesy of Wikimedia.

Why don’t forest protectors get paid? asks Suriname’s president

Rhett Ayers Butler 21 Nov 2025
Banzeiro da Easperanza in Belem. Photo by Lucas Boony

A forest worth more standing: Virgilio Viana on what it will take to protect the Amazon

Rhett Ayers Butler 21 Nov 2025
Chris Grinter. Photo © California Academy of Sciences

Inside California’s race to document its insects: A conversation with Chris Grinter

Rhett Ayers Butler 20 Nov 2025
Dodo bird icon.

A slowdown, not salvation: what new extinction data reveal about the state of life on Earth

Rhett Ayers Butler 17 Nov 2025
Corals and fish in Lighthouse Reef atoll, Belize.

Are Belize’s fisheries policies delivering?

Rhett Ayers Butler 17 Nov 2025
Gayatri Reksodihardjo-Lilley. Photo by Surya Risuana.

Gayatri Reksodihardjo-Lilley, who helped Indonesian communities restore their reefs, has died

Rhett Ayers Butler 16 Nov 2025
Saalumarada Thimakka receives the Padma Shri from President Ram Nath Kovind. Photo by President's Secretariat (GODL-India).

Saalumarada Thimmakka, mother of trees, has died, aged 114

Rhett Ayers Butler 15 Nov 2025
Akhyari Hananto. Courtesy of Hananto

From rock music to rainforests: Akhyari Hananto’s unlikely path to impact

Rhett Ayers Butler 14 Nov 2025
Jane Goodall with Roots & Shoots members. Photo by Mary Paris/JGI

At her memorial, a call to carry Jane Goodall’s hope forward

Rhett Ayers Butler 12 Nov 2025
Gregg Treinish in Botswana's Okavango. Photo by Shah Selbe

Turning outdoor exploration into environmental discovery: Gregg Treinish and the rise of Adventure Scientists

Rhett Ayers Butler 11 Nov 2025
People in the Amazon rainforest understory. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

A blueprint for communicating about the Amazon rainforest (commentary)

Rhett Ayers Butler 9 Nov 2025
Cacao. Image courtesy of Instituto Arapyaú

Brazil can protect its forests while growing its economy, says Arapyaú’s Renata Piazzon

Rhett Ayers Butler 5 Nov 2025

News and Inspiration from Nature's Frontline.

Videos
Previously undetected in other protected areas, a tigress known as SWT001F was the first individual tiger captured on camera in Thailand's Sisawat Non-Hunting Area in 2024. Panthera, Thailand's DNP and other partners are working to monitor and protect Indochinese tigers and their prey in this region where camera traps have shown tigers are using Sisawat forest as a corridor. Currently plans exist to propose the adjoining forest area to the east as an extension of Sisawat.
Articles
A double-hooked blue shark.
Podcasts

you're currently offline