Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries.

In a packed event held in Palo Alto, California, at the end of SF Climate Week in April, Willie Shubert, the vice president of programs and executive editor at Mongabay, shared a compelling example of how Mongabay’s journalism is making a real-world impact.

He described how Mongabay’s consistent, beat-focused coverage helped prevent the deforestation of 535,000 hectares (1.32 million acres) of Amazon Rainforest in Suriname — an area equivalent to more than 15% of global annual primary tropical forest loss.

For years, Mongabay reporters had tracked the expansion of Mennonite agricultural communities across Latin America, using satellite imagery, field research and on-the-ground verification. By treating incremental developments — such as new bridges into areas adjacent to protected areas zones — as newsworthy early-warning signs, our journalists built a network of trusted sources and strong relationships with local communities.

This trust paid off when a confidential source leaked a secret agreement to convert vast areas of rainforest for new agricultural settlements for Mennonite colonists. Mongabay broke the story in December 2023 with satellite analysis from the nonprofit Amazon Conservation. By January, lawmakers, civil society groups and Indigenous communities mounted an outcry. The pilot project was cancelled soon after, and the larger initiative was halted by court injunction.

Shubert emphasized that this result wasn’t the product of a single investigation, but of daily, consistent journalism — showing how long-term commitment to covering environmental beats can shape real outcomes for forests, communities and the planet.

It’s a powerful reminder: timely, accurate  journalism doesn’t just inform — it inspires people to action.

Banner image: Rainforest in Suriname. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

Often hidden from view, fungi are critical part of our ecosystems. Some can be eaten as mushrooms; others help trees and forests thrive. But that’s not all: they’re also helping us create low-cost, sustainable housing materials and additional income for farmers, says Gabriela D’Elia, director of the Fungal Diversity Survey and a fungi enthusiast, in a recent Mongabay video.

“Fungi are showing us new ways to live in allyship with the planet,” D’Elia says.

In an episode of Mongabay’s video series “Against All Odds,” which highlights the latest environment trends and solutions through interviews with experts, D’Elia gives us a breakdown of the different kinds of solutions that fungi offer to humans.

Take oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus), for example. In Namibia, a project called BioHab uses them to support food security, livelihoods and housing. The project members start by clearing Acacia mellifera, or blackthorn bush, which has encroached upon the country’s savannas. This serves two purposes: Blackthorn is “a fantastic substrate” to grow mushrooms on, D’Elia says, and harvesting the shrub allows native grassland to grow and feed cattle and antelope.

Meanwhile, the cultivated oyster mushrooms help farmers earn a living, while the waste from their cultivation is pressed, baked and turned into dense blocks that can be used as building materials.

Another company, Evocative, uses a mushroom called artist’s conk (Ganoderma applanatum) to create “myco-materials,” or materials made in the lab using the mycelium of the fungus. Mycelium functions similarly to a plant’s roots, forming a web of thin, interlocking threads called hyphae. These myco-materials are sustainable and can possibly replace leather, plastic and other packaging materials, D’Elia says. “Myco-materials are really going to change how industries can become sustainable and have much less toxic waste generation.”

As for giant garden mushrooms (Stropharia rugosoannulata), studies show how it can help filter antibiotic-resistant bacteria living in waterways and wetlands, D’Elia says. “It’s very important to have clean and clear waterways, or else the bacteria goes into our water supply and affects nature and people.”

D’Elia also points out the role of porcini mushrooms (Boletus edulis), which live in mutualistic relationship with tree roots. The fungus gives the tree roots water and nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen, while the tree gives the fungus sugars in return.

Such close relationships with mushrooms help trees and forests survive illnesses, bug infestations and stressors such as fluctuating temperatures, D’Elia says.

“These examples are all very different, but they demonstrate one thing, which is how fungi are so essential for the resiliency of our planet,” D’Elia adds.

Watch the video “Fungi are our climate allies” here.

Banner image of Gabriela D’Elia, director of the Fungal Diversity Survey and fungi enthusiast. Image © Carmen Hilbert.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The Trump administration plans to rescind a nearly quarter-century-old rule that blocked logging on national forest lands. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Monday that the 2001 roadless rule from the last days of the Clinton administration impeded road construction and timber production that would have reduced the risk of major wildfires. The USDA says the rule affects 30% of national forest lands nationwide. Environmental groups criticize the proposed change, calling it an attack on the air we breathe, water we drink, and habitat for wildlife.

Reporting by Morgan Lee And Becky Bohrer, Associated Press.

Banner image: Hoh rainforest, U.S.. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay

In the forests of Vidarbha, where he spent most of his adult life, Maruti Chitampalli did not walk so much as listen. While others mapped territory, he absorbed language—of birds, of trees, of the people who lived among them. Over four decades as a forest officer in Maharashtra, he moved not as a bureaucrat but as a student, learning from former hunters, Adivasi elders, and the long silences of the jungle. To them he owed his real education. The theory he had picked up in the Coimbatore Forest College—on timber yield and tree girth—was soon rendered secondary.

He rose to become Deputy Chief Conservator of Forests, but it was his work outside of formal duties that left a deeper mark. He helped shape protected areas such as Karnala Bird Sanctuary, Nagzira Wildlife Sanctuary, and the Melghat Tiger Reserve, and designed orphanages for displaced wildlife. Yet his most lasting achievement may have been as a communicator of the wild to those who would never step into it.

He wrote 25 books in Marathi—some factual, some impressionistic, some encyclopedic. His first, Pakshi Jaay Digantara (“The Birds Migrate Beyond the Horizon”), published in 1981, was an immediate success. His later works—Pakshi Kosh (on birds), Prani Kosh (on animals), and the unfinished Matsya Kosh (on fish)—made scientific knowledge accessible in local idioms, often borrowing from tribal dialects. He introduced new terms to the Marathi language, blending folk knowledge and field observation with philological care.

Chitampalli’s commitment to language was methodical. When he realized he could not understand the Sanskrit and scientific texts he needed, he enrolled in language classes—first Sanskrit, then others. He kept to a monkish discipline: waking at 3am to write, even in old age, and filling diaries with observations drawn from campfires and canopy walks.

His admirers called him Aranya Rishi, the forest sage. But unlike the mythical seers of Hindu lore, Chitampalli made no claims to spiritual insight. His knowledge was built from patience, repetition, and a deep respect for what he called the “minute details” of the natural world. He believed diary-keeping to be a moral obligation for foresters—an ethic largely absent, he lamented, among newer generations.

Though he received the Padma Shri just months before his death, recognition came late. He presided over the Marathi Sahitya Sammelan in 2006, rare for someone from the forestry profession. And while his books are required reading in Maharashtra’s universities and schools, few were ever translated. That bothered him. The forest, he felt, belonged to all—and so should the stories it held.

He returned to Solapur, his birthplace, shortly before his death. From there, too frail to roam, he continued writing from memory and notes. “My readers and various organizations,” he said, “are my successors.” He was not being humble. He meant that the work of listening—and of passing on what is heard—is never truly finished.

Mongabay-India Obituary

Header: Chitampalli. Screenshot from Wildlife of Vidarbha

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries.

More than a century after British colonial forces marched into the Siang Valley in what is now the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, their expedition has taken on a new significance. What began in 1912 as a punitive military campaign has yielded an unlikely legacy: a 1,000-page natural history record that, today, is helping scientists rediscover one of India’s least-studied ecosystems, reports Simrin Sirur.

That legacy is now being reclaimed. A recent biodiversity survey, led by Indian researchers and conservationists retracing the 1912 route, has documented more than 1,500 species, from elusive birds to shimmering electric-blue ants and ancient velvet worms. The findings underscore the valley’s ecological wealth and its role as a migratory corridor, including for species like the common crane (Grus grus), never before seen there in such numbers.

Yet this landscape, stretching from lowland tropics to alpine pastures, is under growing threat. Deforestation, expanding agriculture, and the proposed 11.2-gigawatt Upper Siang Dam loom large.

“As long as the habitat is there, species can bounce back,” said Rajkamal Goswami of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE). “But if it’s converted or submerged, we lose everything.”

In response, community-led conservation efforts are taking root. In Gobuk, a remote village in Upper Siang, residents have built a grassroots initiative around the rediscovery of the “dark freak” butterfly, Calinaga aborica. Where once hunting was tradition, pride in biodiversity is growing. Homestays now host visitors and school libraries stock species guides. Other villages near Mouling National Park are also beginning to establish community-conserved areas.

At a time when global insect and bird populations are in decline, the Siang expedition is not only a scientific rediscovery — it is a call to safeguard what remains. In a region long overlooked, communities and researchers are charting a different path, one that values knowledge, memory and stewardship over conquest.

This is a summary of Simrin Sirur’s “Retracing the route of a century-old biodiversity expedition.”

Banner image: Expedition members collect samples of moths and other insects. Image by Sandesh Kadur/Felis Images (CC BY-ND 4.0).

Climate change, overfishing and habitat loss have caused a sharp decline in fish stocks around Pemba Island, off the coast of Tanzania. To find a new income from the sea, women from Pemba are turning to sustainable seaweed farming, Mongabay’s video team reported in May.

Seaweed farming was introduced to the island in 1989. It has a low environmental impact at small scale, especially since it’s grown in shallow ocean water and doesn’t require fertilizers, freshwater or arable land. Today, the practice helps seaweed farmers, who are mostly women, support their families.

“I have been a seaweed farmer since 1995. I value this activity as it helps me provide food for my family, pay for my children’s education, and earn a living,” seaweed farmer Shadya told Mongabay.

She added that the seaweed farm has created something of a microhabitat attracting a variety of fish, squid, octopus and other marine animals. Studies also show that seaweed farms can mitigate the local effects of ocean acidification.

Seaweed has become one of Tanzania’s main exports, Mongabay reported. In light of this, the government has been supporting programs for sustainable seaweed farming.

“Since this project, they’ve adopted modern farming techniques,” seaweed agriculture expert Aisha Hamisi Sultani told Mongabay, referring to what is called a double loop system.

More than 25,000 seaweed farmers, mostly women, have benefited from a government program in partnership with The Nature Conservancy. With improved cultivation techniques, the farmers are able to earn more money.

“It helped us greatly as our harvests have increased,” Shadya said.

Despite their progress, the seaweed farmers of Tanzania still face a number of challenges, including the changing climate.

“When the water gets too hot, the seaweed is damaged. During strong winds, it gets scattered,” Shadya said.

Sultani said the farmers also have to deal with ocean pollution from improper waste disposal.

Most of the seaweed sold for export is used to make carrageenan or agar, which are thickening and stabilizing agents for food, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

“Over 90% of seaweed is exported as raw material. Farmers, especially women, do not benefit because they’re given a lower price,” Ayubu Singoye, an aquaculture specialist with TNC, told Mongabay.

For a kilogram of seaweed they are paid just 700 shillings or 25 U.S. cents, or about 12 cents a pound.

Sultani said the next step is to process the seaweed locally, creating value-added seaweed products so the farmers can earn more from their labor.

Singoye said the government has already built a factory in Pemba to process seaweed into carrageenan.

“Hopefully when the factory starts [early next year], we’ll be able to process here and have a better price,” Singoye said.

Watch the full video here.

Banner image of a woman farming seaweed at Pemba Island, Tanzania. Image © Franz Thiel.