In the wake of George Floyd's killing last year, long-running concerns about discrimination, colonial legacy, privilege, and power dynamics in conservation have gained prominence, forcing many organizations in the sector…
Destruction of Earth's largest rainforest is accelerating ahead of the region's peak fire and deforestation season, reveals data released today by Brazil's national space research institute INPE. According to INPE's…
Community-led conservation approaches are working, says Peter Kallang, a Kenyah leader in Sarawak who led a successful campaign to block a mega-dam project.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon last month reached the highest level in any May since at least 2007, reports Brazil's national space research institute INPE. The new data come as…
Efforts to maintain protected areas and safeguard wildlife can at times feel futile given the persistent onslaught of encroachment, poaching and extractive activities. At the extremes, top-down conservation approaches may…
On Endangered Species Day, May 21st, a group of award-winning actors, the Los Angeles Zoo, the University of Montana, and Mongabay will release a new podcast, “Endangered: Short Tales for…
Protecting Africa's charismatic megafauna often come first to mind when Westerners think about conservation in Africa. But there's a lot more to conservation efforts across the continent beyond elephants and…
In the late 2000s and the early 2010s, the Brazilian palm oil industry told us that oil palm plantation expansion would take a different path than in Southeast Asia, where…
A coalition of groups, including a newly formed organization backed by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, have mobilized $43 million for efforts to restore degraded habitats in the Galápagos Islands, an archipelago…
After Brazil, the South American country that lost the greatest area of primary forest over the past twenty years is Bolivia. The land-locked nation has seen its diverse forests rapidly…
An area of forest larger than Madagascar has regrown around the world since 2000, concludes an analysis published by Trillion Trees, a joint conservation initiative between BirdLife International, WCS, and…
Western corporations have been inflicting environmental damage overseas for generations, but the sharp rise in the scale of China's international ambitions and operations in recent years has put a spotlight…
It's no secret that humanity is abusing the world's oceans. We're overfishing at all levels of marine food chains, we're annihilating critical habitats from mangroves to coral reefs, and we're…
Like many sectors, conservation has increasingly been reckoning with issues around inclusivity, representation, justice, and equity. Many of these stem from the sector’s origins in the West, where conservation has…
The past year has been difficult for much of Latin America: The pandemic has hit the region harder than most, a series of natural and manmade disasters has adversely impacted…
A new initiative to mobilize at least $1 billion to reward tropical countries for halting deforestation was announced April 22, Earth Day, at the Leaders Summit on Climate hosted by…
Since his breakthrough book, The Lizard King, and his National Geographic feature on “The Kingpin”, Bryan Christy has established himself as one of the best-known wildlife crime writers. In 2012,…
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic went global just over a year ago, there had been a notable shift in messaging from some of the world’s largest companies around their responsibility…
2020 was supposed to be the year for evaluating the past decade’s progress in meeting biodiversity conservation targets and setting the agenda for the next decade. But then the pandemic…
Over the past 20 years, the conservation sector has increasingly recognized the contributions Indigenous communities have made toward achieving conservation goals, including protecting biodiversity and maintaining ecosystems that sustain us.…
Shortly ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Mongabay spoke with Antha N. Williams, the head of the environment program at Bloomberg Philanthropies, the foundation launched by businessman and former…
Efforts to advance biodiversity conservation in China is generally not well understood in the West. But with China set to host the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties…
The Wallace Global Fund’s Ellen Dorsey says philanthropic foundations need to do more, including divesting from fossil fuels and focusing less on building their own endowments.
With much of the accessible lowland primary forests in Sumatra and Borneo cleared and converted for agriculture and industrial plantations, the Indonesian half of New Guinea is the last stand…
No one was sure exactly what near-term impact the global pandemic would have the world’s forests in 2020. Some expected lockdowns and economic shocks to dampen deforestation rates; others thought…
In the past decade, the term “Just Transition” has gained more widespread understanding among climate campaigners and environmental advocates. A Just Transition is the idea that the shift toward low-carbon…
This Sunday is International Day of Forests as established by the U.N. in 2012. In recognition, here's an update on some of the topics from Mongabay's "Rainforests: 11 things to…
In the early 1990s, using the money they earned from their leadership roles at Patagonia Inc., The North Face, and Esprit, Kris and Doug Tompkins began buying up vast amounts…
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is a 19 million acre reserve in the northeastern corner of Alaska that's renowned for its beauty and wildlife. ANWR also holds great cultural…
In the past year there's been a lot more talk about stakeholder inclusivity in the conservation sector. The combination of the social justice movement arising out of George Floyd's killing…
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.
