Rhett Ayers Butler, Mongabay founder and CEO, has been named to the 2025 Forbes Sustainability Leaders List, which honors 50 global leaders working to combat the climate crisis.

“Mongabay has tended to fly under the radar. We’ve focused on the journalism rather than promoting ourselves, so this recognition is especially meaningful — and it reflects the contributions of everyone involved,” Butler said.

The recognition is a milestone in a journey that goes back some 25 years to when Butler was a teenager visiting a rainforest in Borneo.

“I vividly remember cooling my feet beside a jungle creek when a wild orangutan emerged in the canopy overhead. We made eye contact — just for a few seconds — but the moment stayed with me,” he told Forbes.

He later learned that the forest where he had that profound experience was to be destroyed for pulp and paper. That devastating news sparked in him a lifelong commitment to conservation; he eventually quit his tech job in Silicon Valley and started Mongabay out of his California apartment.

“My parents weren’t thrilled about the idea,” he recalled. “I was often asked when I’d get a ‘real job.’ It took several years — and external recognition — for them to see that Mongabay could be a ‘real job.’”

Today, Mongabay is a global newsroom with roughly 1,000 contributors across more than 80 countries, producing podcasts, videos and articles in seven languages from bureaus in Latin America, India, Africa and Brazil. Hundreds of local media outlets republish Mongabay content, worldwide.

All that work, expansion and outreach are in service of the same goal: “to ensure that credible environmental information is available to everyone — especially those with the power to act,” Butler told Forbes.

Unlike many media outlets, Mongabay doesn’t measure success in clicks or pageviews. Instead, it focuses on “meaningful, real-world outcomes,” Butler added.

To that end, the organization engages directly with policymakers and local communities most affected by environmental degradation. Mongabay’s planned story transformer initiative, for example, will use AI with human editors to repackage original reporting into audio and local languages for frontline communities that may struggle with barriers in access, language or literacy.

Mongabay’s direct engagement has made tangible impacts on the ground. In Gabon, coverage of a community’s fight against a foreign logging company helped lead to the revocation of the company’s permit, a first in Gabon.

Reporting from Paraguay linked illegal deforestation to cattle and leather, helping push the EU to include leather in its anti-deforestation law.

In Peru, Mongabay’s reporting on United Cacao practices contributed to the government revoking its permit, the company’s delisting from the London Stock Exchange and the protection of nearly 100,000 hectares of rainforest.

“These aren’t abstract wins — they’re forests still standing, communities empowered and ecosystems given a second chance. Bearing witness to both the threats and the possibilities reminds me daily that telling these stories matters,” Butler said.

Banner image: Rhett Butler in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay

Every year in the Gulf of Panama, between December and April, trade winds from the north push warm surface water away from the coast, allowing cool, nutrient-rich water from the depths to rise, in a process called upwelling. This is critical for the region’s marine life and fisheries. However, for the first time in at least 40 years, this upwelling failed in 2025, likely due to altered trade winds, a recent study reports.

Researchers compared this year’s data to 40 years of satellite sea surface temperature records and on-site water column temperature recordings.

Those decades of data show that northerly trade winds predictably arrive each year between January and April. Historically, upwelling begins by Jan. 20 and lasts for 66 days, cooling the water to roughly 19° Celsius (66° Fahrenheit). But in 2025, the upwelling began 42 days late, on March 4. It lasted just 12 days, an 82% reduction in duration, and never cooled the water below 23.3°C (73.9°F). That meant fewer cold days than any other year on record.

Researchers note the change may be linked to the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCV) during last year’s weak La Niña. The ITCV is an area of low pressure around the equator where trade winds from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres collide, creating wind and thunderstorms.

Typically, in the Gulf of Panama, the ITCV shifts to the south between January and April, allowing strong northerly winds to blow through the area and drive upwelling. However, previous research suggests climate change may be narrowing and weakening the ITCV.

“When winds did occur, they were as strong as ever, but they simply didn’t blow for sufficient time to kickstart the upwelling process as they normally do,” study lead author Aaron O’Dea, a scientist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, told Mongabay by email.

Cooling from upwelling helps protect corals from heat stress. And the influx of deep-sea nutrients feed plankton, the base of marine food chains.

“Over 95% of Panama’s marine biomass comes from the Pacific side thanks to the upwelling of nutrients,” O’Dea said. It’s the foundation of an annual $200 million marine export industry, he added.

“Long-term, if this becomes the new normal, we’re talking about some fundamental shifts in marine ecology and the livelihoods of coastal communities that have depended on this predictable phenomenon for thousands of years,” O’Dea said.

It’s unclear if the abrupt change in wind pattern in 2025 is a one-time anomaly or a new normal, or how widespread this type of change is.

Few tropical upwelling sites globally are as well monitored as the Gulf of Panama, which is the site of ongoing research between the Smithsonian and the Max Planck Institute.

“This research represents one of the first major outcomes from that collaboration, and it illustrates why sustained ocean monitoring is so critical,” O’Dea said.

Banner image: Chlorophyll concentrations in the Gulf of Panama, February 2024. Image courtesy of Aaron O’Dea.

Five people were rescued after a pod of critically endangered Iberian orcas rammed into a sailboat several times, causing it to sink off Portugal’s Costa do Caparica, near the nation’s capital, Lisbon, on Sept. 13.

None of the people on board suffered any injuries, according to the Portuguese maritime authority. The boat, owned by yacht rental company Nautic Squad, sank bow-first but was later transported to a nearby port.

The same day in Cascais Bay, around 60 kilometers (37 miles) northeast, tourists aboard a second sailboat also reported orcas knocking against the side of their vessel. This year, more than 80 such orca interactions, most of them involving sailboats, have been reported along the coast of Spain and Portugal.

The Iberian orcas form a subpopulation of killer whales (Orcinus orca) found in the Strait of Gibraltar, numbering roughly 37 individuals. They’ve been listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2019.

The first orca-boat interaction was reported in May 2020, and there have since been more than 750 encounters where orcas push or ram into boats. Prior to the latest incident, orcas caused at least six boats to sink. Vessels can avoid orcas by sticking close to shore near their hunting zones.

The subpopulation’s numbers plummeted after the collapse of its preferred prey, the Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus), due to overfishing. Today, the tuna population has recovered, and some scientists think the abundance of food has given orcas more time to play.

Boat ramming joins a roster of other curious orca behaviors, such as wearing dead salmon on their heads like hats, and using kelp to massage each other.

Researchers say it’s likely just a handful of orcas behind most of the incidents. One, which they’ve nicknamed Gladis Blanca after the former scientific name of the species, Orcinus gladiator, is believed to have started the fad.

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has warned against calling the behavior an attack, as the orcas are more likely engaging in some form of play.

“The behavior has more in common with fads seen elsewhere and seems associated with play or socializing, perhaps encouraged by the recent increased abundance and availability of prey,” a 2024 report on a IWC workshop stated. “The use of words such as ‘aggression’ or ‘attack’ to describe such interactions is thus inappropriate.”

Orcas may be using sailboats to train their young to hunt, one scientist, Bruno Díaz López, chief biologist at the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute in Spain, told The New York Times in August 2024. His research team found that boat ramming is usually done by young orcas, and has observed adults teaching the behavior to juveniles.

“This is like a training toy,” Díaz said. “It’s a shame that we humans are in the middle of this game, but they are learning,” he added.

Banner image: Iberian orcas pictured off the coast of Spain. Image courtesy of circe.info.

More than 100,000 people marched through Cuenca, a city in southern Ecuador, on Sept. 16, demanding that federal authorities revoke an environmental license for a gold mining project that may impact an important freshwater source.

The Loma Larga mining project, run by Canadian mining company Dundee Precious Metals, borders the 3,200-hectare (7,900-acre) Quimsacocha National Recreation Area, located within the UNESCO Macizo del Cajas Biosphere Reserve. Quimsacocha is a central source of clean freshwater in the Andean páramo tundra located approximately 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) southeast of Cuenca.

According to Reuters, protesters at the March for Water, convened by Indigenous and other local groups, chanted “Hands off Quimsacocha!” and “Water is worth more than anything!” with support from high-profile activists and politicians who oppose the mining project.

Cuenca mayor Cristian Zamora said the public outcry against the project is almost unanimous among his constituents. “We didn’t expect the amount of people that came out today to say yes to life, yes to water, and yes to our páramos,” he said in a video statement after the protest.

Ecuador’s environment ministry approved the Loma Larga project’s environmental license in late June. But on Aug. 6, the Ministry of Energy and Mining wrote a letter to Dundee requesting an environmental management plan, adding that “until the process is complete … the start of activities is suspended.”

“Our water, a heritage that is encoded in the spirit of every citizen of Cuenca, can’t just be put on pause,” Zamora wrote on X on Aug. 7. “We [will] remain highly vigilant until there is a complete stop.”

A 2024 technical report by Cuenca’s public water utility, ETAPA, had flagged widespread potential risks from mine waste and water contamination if the Loma Larga project proceeds, highlighting that rivers fed by Quimsacocha supply water to tens of thousands of people and irrigate the region’s crops and pastures.

Mining contamination in Quimsacocha could also further imperil the locally endangered Andean condor (Vultur gryphus), which uses the region for nesting and foraging. Fewer than 150 individuals are left in the country.

Ecuador’s energy and mining minister, Inés Manzano, recently warned that local government bodies could face legal repercussions if they were to take action to block the mine.

Dundee Precious Metals had not responded to Mongabay’s request for comments by the time of publishing. However, a July 7 press release celebrating the approval of Loma Larga’s environmental license said the project’s design and execution plan “has been optimized to minimize its footprint and reflect high standards of environmental stewardship and responsible water management.”

Dundee’s project reports state that it plans to extract 3,000 metric tons of gold, silver or copper ore per day, reaching more than 14 million tons over 12 years.

Banner image: Aerial photo of the March for Water held in Cuenca on Sept. 16. Image via X.

A landmark opinion from the United Nations International Court of Justice has ruled that rising sea levels caused by climate change do not require countries to redraw their maritime borders. Small island nations, among the most vulnerable to sea level rise, are hailing the decision as a victory against a threat to their sovereignty.

In a July 23 advisory opinion, the U.N.’s highest court concluded that a nation’s existing maritime zones should remain unchanged even if coastlines shrink as sea levels rise. It also said that if the landmass of an established country were to be completely submerged by rising seas, “the disappearance of one of its constituent elements would not necessarily entail loss of statehood.”

In Mongabay’s Sept. 9 podcast, host Mike DiGirolamo spoke to Angelique Pouponneau, an environmental lawyer from Seychelles and lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States.

“What island nations were trying to guard against through state practice was essentially if there were ever to be loss of territory, it would not mean loss of exclusive economic zone,” Pouponneau said in the interview.

Countries can claim control over ocean waters up to 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from their shores, an area known as the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), where they hold exclusive rights to fishing and natural resources.

Until relatively recently, shorelines were presumed to be stable. The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea that first established legal limits for claims on the ocean makes no mention of sea level rise. The concern among low-lying island nations is that as their coastlines recede, there would be a corresponding shrinkage in the outer limit of their EEZ.

“Inevitably, our economies are entirely dependent … on this ocean space,” Pouponneau said. “Can you imagine you once had exclusive rights, and then … everybody’s actually able to have access to all the resources that you had exclusive rights to?”

The nations most impacted by rising seas are in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean, as well as other island nations in Asia and Africa, such as Timor-Leste and Comoros. The Solomon Islands, an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, has already lost five reef islands to sea level rise.

“One of the things that island nations tried to shift in terms of the narrative was: I may be limited in landmass, but I have this whole huge ocean space,” Pouponneau said.

Seychelles, a nation of around 100,000 people and just 459 square kilometers (177 square miles) of land, has 1.35 million km2 (521,000 mi2) of ocean, an area larger than Peru.

For Pouponneau, the decision is also important for marine conservation: “We see ourselves as responsible custodians of our ocean space, because we understand that it is foundational to everything.”

Listen to the full podcast episode here.

Banner image: An island in Fiji, in the South Pacific. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

Most coral reefs in the Caribbean could stop growing, and even start eroding away, by 2040 if global warming continues unchecked, a new study finds. 

Coral reefs, especially those near shores, protect valuable coastlines from flooding during cyclones and storm surges by breaking up wave energy. For the reefs to continue to act as natural wave barriers, they need to grow fast enough to keep up with sea level rise. However, coral growth is increasingly under threat from diseases, pollution and the effects of climate change.

Climate change, in particular, is causing a decline in reefs worldwide. Rising ocean temperatures are causing corals to bleach and die, making reefs more vulnerable to other threats. Meanwhile, higher carbon dioxide levels are making seawater more acidic, making it harder for corals to build their skeletons.

Researchers who monitor coral reefs in the tropical western Atlantic or the Caribbean — including the Florida Keys, Mexico’s Caribbean coast and the Caribbean island of Bonaire — have observed the progressive decline in reef health due to diseases and extreme ocean heat over the last several decades, said Chris Perry, the study’s lead author and a professor at the University of Exeter, U.K.

So, the researchers set out to find out how well reefs in the region will continue to grow as the climate warms. They first examined vertical sections of ancient fossil reefs, exposed by coastal uplifting. This allowed them to understand how different coral communities built reefs over time in the past, Perry said. 

They combined this understanding with ecological data from more than 400 modern reef sites to calculate how fast these reefs grow today. Further, they used climate models to predict how the reefs’ current growth rates might change by 2100 under different global warming scenarios.

The researchers found that by 2040, more than 70% of coral reefs in the Caribbean region could stop growing and start eroding. By 2100, nearly all the reefs could be eroded, if warming reaches 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Under current climate policies, temperatures globally are projected to rise by 2.7°C (4.86°F) by 2100.

The analysis also projects that coral growth is unlikely to keep pace with sea level rise. In some areas, reefs could face 0.3-0.5 meters (about 1-1.6 feet) of additional water over them by 2060, and about 0.7-1.2 m (2.3-3.9 ft) by 2100.  

Coral reefs not only protect shorelines, they are also an essential sheltering habitat for marine life and sustain important fisheries that communities globally depend on. If coral growth can’t keep pace with sea level rise, the reefs’ ability to reduce coastal wave energy will be diminished, increasing the risk of coastal erosion, flooding and disruption of ecosystems like seagrass meadows, Perry said.  

Actions that keep global warming to below 2°C will be critical to limiting the worst effects of future sea level rise, he added.

Banner image: Leonoras reef in Klein Bonaire. Image by EdFladung via Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0).