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.

LinkedIn Profile | Personal website | Contact

Some background on Mongabay's origin:

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2306 stories
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
Rhett Butler in the Singapore Botanical Garden in 2023. Image by Alyson Blume.

The secret to building a global newsroom? Lead with impact, says Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler

Alejandro Prescott-Cornejo, Rhett Ayers Butler 13 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
Girl with a seedling in Northern California. Image by Rhett Ayers Butler

Investing in the next generation of environmental journalists (commentary)

Rhett Ayers Butler 4 Nov 2025
The last photo taken between Rhett Butler and Jane Goodall--who shared a friendship for nearly 15 years--at the Forbes Sustainability Leadership Summit. Photo by Sofia Negron.

Rhett Butler reflects on recent accolades, and Jane Goodall’s legacy of hope

Mike DiGirolamo, Rhett Ayers Butler 4 Nov 2025
Puerto Caimán Island in the Curare-Los Ingleses Indigenous Reserve’s conservation area.

Indigenous communities protect Colombia’s uncontacted peoples

Rhett Ayers Butler 4 Nov 2025
Rainforest in Vietnam. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler.

Beyond deforestation: redesigning how we protect and value tropical forests (analysis)

Rhett Ayers Butler 3 Nov 2025
Wilmar Eliaser Simandjorang

One man’s mission to rewild a dying lake

Rhett Ayers Butler 3 Nov 2025
Banyan tree in Vietnam. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler.

What might lie ahead for tropical forests (analysis)

Rhett Ayers Butler 2 Nov 2025
Long-tailed macaques living in the mountains of Cambodia's Battambang province

The price of a monkey

Rhett Ayers Butler 31 Oct 2025
Corals and fish in Lighthouse Reef atoll, Belize.

Belize’s blue reputation vs. reef reality: Marine conservation wins, and what’s missing (commentary)

Rhett Ayers Butler 31 Oct 2025
Hagar Kudzordi Widow of Samuel Abayateye, looks at photos of her deceased husband, hoping to get answers. Image by Gideon Anku

A fisheries observer disappeared at sea. His family still waits for answers

Rhett Ayers Butler 31 Oct 2025
Annual deforestation in the Legal Amazon (Amazonia) from 1988-2025, according to a preliminary estimate from Brazil's national space research institute, INPE.

Heading into COP, Brazil’s Amazon deforestation rate is falling. What about fires?

Rhett Ayers Butler 30 Oct 2025
A Bornean orangutan. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

Why facts alone won’t save the planet

Rhett Ayers Butler 29 Oct 2025
Austin and his technician, Nathan Tang, searching the sand dunes for insects at Death Valley National Park

California’s grand insect census

Rhett Ayers Butler 29 Oct 2025
Visitors to a safari park in Gazipur enjoy a ride on an elephant.

Bangladesh to reintroduce captive elephants to the wild

Rhett Ayers Butler 28 Oct 2025
A beaver explores its new home at Tásmam Koyóm in 2023.

California learns from its beaver reintroductions

Rhett Ayers Butler 27 Oct 2025

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San Mateo village, one of 29 Matsés communities in Peru, on the banks of the Gálvez River. Image by Aimee Gabay/Mongabay.
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