Rhett Ayers Butler

Rhett Ayers Butler

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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.

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Some background on Mongabay's origin:

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2164 stories
Pascale Moehrle. Courtesy of Oceana.

Pascale Moehrle pressed Europe to take its seas seriously

Rhett Ayers Butler 7 Mar 2026
Torres (middle) conducting an interview with architect Marina Tabassum in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2025. Image courtesy of Wasif Kabir.

Attention is scarce. Storytelling strategy matters more than ever

Rhett Ayers Butler 4 Mar 2026
Paul Brainerd, President of Aldus, Creator of PageMaker, in 1986. Photo credit: DGHealy

Paul Brainerd turned computers into printing presses and fortune into conservation

Rhett Ayers Butler 4 Mar 2026

No grid, no problem: How Amazon communities built their own power systems

Rhett Ayers Butler 3 Mar 2026
Royal flycatcher (Onychorhynchus coronatus). Photo by Mileniusz Spanowicz / WCS.

Birds are changing — and Indigenous memory is the longest record we have

Rhett Ayers Butler 3 Mar 2026
Yosemite Valley. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

America’s national parks face an uncertain future as climate risks mount

Rhett Ayers Butler 2 Mar 2026
Justin Claude Rakotoarisoa, project leader and founding member of Association Mitsinjo. Image by Rivonala Razafison for Mongabay.

Justin Claude Rakotoarisoa, a guardian of Madagascar’s amphibians, has died, aged 45

Rhett Ayers Butler 2 Mar 2026
Abu Dhabi port. Courtesy of the European Space Agency (ESA)

The power of cities over the seas

Rhett Ayers Butler 1 Mar 2026
Story over a Fijian island. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Who actually uses environmental journalism — and why it matters

Rhett Ayers Butler 27 Feb 2026
Rainbow over Borneo. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Letters to the future from journalism’s next generation

Rhett Ayers Butler 26 Feb 2026
Redwoods in Thornewood Open Space Preserve in Woodside, California. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Measuring what works in conservation

Rhett Ayers Butler 24 Feb 2026
Smoke from a fire in Far North Queensland, Australia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.

After logging bans, Australia turns to “forest thinning”. Does it reduce fire risk?

Rhett Ayers Butler 23 Feb 2026
Jose-Albino-Canas-Ramirez. From Facebook

José Albino Cañas Ramírez, a defender of Indigenous territories, aged 44

Rhett Ayers Butler 20 Feb 2026
Rain over the Amazon. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

The Amazon’s most valuable export isn’t timber — it’s rain

Rhett Ayers Butler 19 Feb 2026

Why so many mangrove restoration projects fail

Rhett Ayers Butler 18 Feb 2026
Atoll

Coral bleaching: How warming seas are transforming the world’s reefs

Rhett Ayers Butler 18 Feb 2026
Amazon rainforest in Ecuador. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Amazon deforestation on pace to be the lowest on record, says Brazil

Rhett Ayers Butler 17 Feb 2026
Satellite image of the eastern part of the Cape York Peninsula in Australia. Courtesy of Earthstar Geographics SIO / Microsoft maps

Scientists can’t agree on where the world’s forests are

Rhett Ayers Butler 17 Feb 2026

PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ are falling in North Atlantic whales after phaseout

Rhett Ayers Butler 16 Feb 2026
Photo by Gary Tabor.

A hundred-year vision: Gary Tabor on the rise of large landscape conservation

Rhett Ayers Butler 16 Feb 2026

When environmental reporting has to outlast the news cycle

Rhett Ayers Butler 13 Feb 2026
Rainforest in Brunei in 2025. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Forests don’t just store carbon. They keep people alive, scientists say

Rhett Ayers Butler 13 Feb 2026
Aerial view of mangroves, coral reef, palm trees, and forest in Raja Ampat. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

The business case for biodiversity

Rhett Ayers Butler 12 Feb 2026

Snakes on a train: King cobras are hitching rides in India

Rhett Ayers Butler 11 Feb 2026

Why a healthy information ecosystem matters

Rhett Ayers Butler 10 Feb 2026
Rhett Butler in the Singapore Botanical Garden in 2023. Image by Alyson Blume.

Mongabay’s Rhett Butler on building a global newsroom for local impact

Rhett Ayers Butler 9 Feb 2026
Gerard C. Boere. Courtesy of AEWA

Gerard C. Boere, conservationist and designer of flyways, died Jan 6, aged 83

Rhett Ayers Butler 9 Feb 2026
Forester kangaroos at The Quoin. Photo credit Doug Gimesy

Financing biodiversity: Lisa Miller on investing in nature

Rhett Ayers Butler 9 Feb 2026
Kathy Jefferson Bancroft

Kathy Jefferson Bancroft, guardian of a stolen lake

Rhett Ayers Butler 6 Feb 2026
An AI image, posted on Facebook in October 2025, depicts a tiger in Africa; tigers are native to Asia.

AI-generated wildlife photos make conservation more difficult

Rhett Ayers Butler 6 Feb 2026
A fawn sprints across a road as the Sugar Fire, part of the Beckwourth Complex Fire, burns in Plumas National Forest, Calif., July 8, 2021. Photo credit: AP Photo/Noah Berger

What is lost when environmental coverage is cut

Rhett Ayers Butler 6 Feb 2026
NOAA’s GOES East satellite captured long, parallel bands of clouds called horizontal convective rolls on Feb 1, 2026.

NOAA’s satellites capture extreme cold in striking detail

Rhett Ayers Butler 5 Feb 2026

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