Founder's briefs News

Founder’s Briefs is an occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Rhett founded Mongabay in 1999 to raise awareness about tropical forests and biodiversity. In 2012, he transitioned Mongabay to a non-profit organization and oversaw its growth into a multinational, multilingual news service. Beyond Mongabay, Rhett has advised a range of institutions, while his writing and photography have appeared in hundreds of publications. Rhett's work has been recognized with the Heinz Award and the Parker/Gentry Award, among other honors.

Jane with Uruhara pant-hooting, 1996. Photo by Michael Neugebauer

Jane Goodall (1934–2025): primatologist, conservationist, and messenger of hope

Rhett Ayers Butler 1 Oct 2025
Photo © California Academy of Sciences

Chris Grinter has spent much of his life surrounded by insects

Rhett Ayers Butler 11 Dec 2025
Deforestation in Borneo, Malaysia. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

Balancing evidence and empathy in an age of doubt

Rhett Ayers Butler 9 Dec 2025
Bamboo lemur in Madagascar. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Lemurs are at risk. So are the people protecting them.

Rhett Ayers Butler 7 Dec 2025

How dropping ads set us free to focus on impact

Rhett Ayers Butler 5 Dec 2025
Gregg Treinish in Botswana's Okavango. Photo by Shah Selbe

Turning adventure into data

Rhett Ayers Butler 4 Dec 2025
Jean Beasley with the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center with a juvenile Kemp's Ridley sea turtle on Sept. 17, 2013 in Surf City, N.C. Photo courtesy of KEN BLEVINS/STARNEWS

Jean Beasley, who turned her young daughter’s dying wish into a mission to save sea turtles, has died

Rhett Ayers Butler 3 Dec 2025
Early-career conservationists take part in the 2025 EDGE Conservation Tools Course, part of a global fellowship program that supports emerging leaders to drive locally led conservation. Image by Paul Barnes /EDGE of Existence, Zoological Society of London.

Small grants can empower the next generation of conservationists

Rhett Ayers Butler 1 Dec 2025
Screenshot of Gramma. Courtesy of the San Diego Zoo.

The long life of a Galápagos tortoise

Rhett Ayers Butler 29 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
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
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
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
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
Wilmar Eliaser Simandjorang

One man’s mission to rewild a dying lake

Rhett Ayers Butler 3 Nov 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
A Bornean orangutan. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

Why facts alone won’t save the planet

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
A representation of a bisected nautilus.

Why independent journalism is a strategic investment for philanthropy (commentary)

Rhett Ayers Butler 26 Oct 2025
Christmas Island shrew

In memory of the Christmas Island shrew

Rhett Ayers Butler 24 Oct 2025
Cultivated poke bowl produced by Ivy Farm. Photo courtesy of Ivy Farm

Reimagining meat: The Good Food Institute’s bid to redesign the global food system

Rhett Ayers Butler 24 Oct 2025
Clearing of peat forest in Indonesia's Riau Province. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Forest Declaration Assessment reveals a forest paradox

Rhett Ayers Butler 22 Oct 2025
Consumed book cover

Plastic’s triumph was no accident. It built an economy addicted to throwaway living

Rhett Ayers Butler 22 Oct 2025
Starling Murmuration. Image by Rhett Ayers Butler

Trust-based philanthropy: Lessons from MacKenzie Scott and Laurene Powell Jobs (commentary)

Rhett Ayers Butler 20 Oct 2025
Willie Shubert in Madagascar with lemurs at a rehabilitation center. Note: visitors are not permitted to touch lemurs, but lemurs do as they please. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Measuring success in trees, not clicks

Rhett Ayers Butler 20 Oct 2025
Mamai Lucille William. Photo courtesy of the North Pakaraimas District Council

Mamai Lucille Williams, a quiet symbol of dignity amid destruction, has died, aged about 93

Rhett Ayers Butler 16 Oct 2025

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In this 2016 image, then-U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power (left), and then- Cameroonian Minister of Forestry and Wildlife Philip Ngole Ngwese (right), attend the destruction of some 2,000 illegally trafficked elephant tusks and ivory products.
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