How many fires are burning in the Amazon?
While fires burning in the Amazon have garnered worldwide attention due to last week's midday "blackout" in urban São Paulo, more than 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) from the Amazon, analysis…
Articles by Rhett A. Butler
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.
Satellite images from Planet reveal devastating Amazon fires in near real-time
High-resolution images from satellite company Planet are revealing glimpses of some of the fires currently devastating the Amazon rainforest. While many of the images currently being shared on social media…
Photo essay: Madagascar’s disappearing dry forests (insider)
The dry forest of western Madagascar is famous for its wildlife and baobab trees, including the tourist destinations of Baobab Alley, Tsingy de Bemaraha, and Kirindy Forest. Among the species…
Bolsonaro can bully on deforestation, but he can’t hide from satellites (commentary)
In response to rising international criticism over a surge in forest clearing since the beginning of the year, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and officials in his administration have recently stepped…
Travelogue: Visiting an indigenous rainforest tribe in Borneo (Insider)
In 2007, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) launched the Heart of Borneo, an initiative that aimed to conserve 22 million hectares (54 million acres) in the transboundary area…
As Amazon deforestation rises, sensational headlines play into Bolsonaro’s agenda (commentary)
In recent weeks, some media outlets have run eye-popping headlines on rising deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: "Deforestation of Brazilian Amazon surges to record high" read a June 4th headline…
Travelogue: Ground-truthing satellite data in Borneo (Insider)
Borneo has been special to me since my earliest years. As a kid, I would voraciously read books about the wilds of Borneo, with its dense rainforests inhabited by traditional…
Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
The island of Borneo is renowned by scientists for its biological bounty. From orangutans to pygmy elephants to towering dipterocarp trees, the forests of the world's third largest island are…
Jane Goodall on Leonardo DiCaprio, her 85th birthday, and the need for hope
To honor Jane Goodall, the City of Los Angeles declared her 85th birthday, April 3, 2019, to be “Dr. Jane Goodall Day” and hosted a ceremony where the conservation icon…
Conservation may offer common ground in Afghan conflict
War, drugs, corruption, and terrorism are terms Westerners are more likely to associate with Afghanistan than biodiversity conservation. But Alex Dehgan, a conservation technologist who runs the Washington D.C.-based Conservation…
Can jaguar tourism save Bolivia’s fast dwindling forests?
ÑUFLO DE CHÁVEZ, Bolivia — Few countries in the tropics have seen their trees chopped down as quickly as Bolivia did between 2001 and 2017. According to data from the…
Dodging charging elephants in a Kenyan forest (insider)
One of the most popular tourist destinations in East Africa is Kenya’s Maasai Mara,. The Maasai Mara, a tract of savanna, is famous for its abundant wildlife, especially large populations…
Rainforests: storylines to watch in 2019
2018 wasn't a great year for tropical rainforests, with major conservation setbacks in Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, and the United States coming on top of back-to-back years of…
How Mongabay grew from a guy in his pajamas to a multinational media organization (insider)
As I described in the origin story post, Mongabay had a very modest beginning. I never had any intention of making a living, let alone a career, out of running…
The biggest rainforest news stories in 2018
2018 was a difficult year for the world's tropical rainforests. Below are of some of the biggest rainforest storylines for the year, but we couldn't cover everything, so if there…
Challenging the illegal logging regime in Madagascar (insider)
It is easy to forget that change starts with one person. In a world that is increasingly connected through mobile phones and the internet, especially social media, it is easier…
Seeing Suriname: A visit to the rainforest goes awry (insider)
Suriname is a country few people have heard of, let alone visited. Located in the northeast corner of South America, Suriname is almost completely covered in rainforest. It has the…
The second time couldn’t be worse than the first (insider)
Madagascar also has great frogs, but what fascinated me about the island was a more unusual type of beast: the chameleon. Since the first time I laid eyes on a…
The river of blood (insider)
Madagascar has been called the “Great Red Island,” and from space, astronauts have remarked it looks like it is bleeding to death. Soil conditions and poorly vegetated hillsides mean Madagascar…
Inspiration from frogs (insider)
Frogs are incredible creatures. Usually born in water, most live the first stages of their life essentially as a fish, before undergoing a radical metamorphosis that transforms them into an…
Special series
Endangered environmentalists
- Fighting to save an endangered ape, Indonesian activists fear for their lives
- Iran sentences eight conservationists convicted of spying
- Watchdog denounces arrests of four anti-mining activists in Indonesia
Indonesias forest guardians
- Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time
- Restoring Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, one small farm at a time
- Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
Amazon infrastructure
- Catastrophic Amazon tipping point less than 30 years away: study
- Amazon’s Munduruku stage daring Christmas raid to recover sacred urns
- Belo Monte boondoggle: Brazil’s biggest, costliest dam may be unviable
Asian rhinos
- Indonesian officials wield sharia law in defense of Sumatran rhinos
- Love triangle complicates efforts to breed Sumatran rhinos
- Indonesia to capture 3 wild Sumatran rhinos to add to breeding population
