George Schaller: The field biologist who helped redefine conservation
Some lives seem to belong less to a nation or a profession than to a disposition. George B. Schaller’s was one of them. He belonged, above all, to animals—gorillas, lions,…
Featured News
Can nature outcompete war in Eastern Congo?
In eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, discussion of conservation often centers on loss: forests cleared, wildlife depleted, conflict spreading across landscapes that once supported some of the richest ecosystems…
Thai court rules gold mine liable, but villagers face uncertain justice
BAN KHAO MO, Thailand — On March 24, 2026, residents of this small community achieved a landmark legal victory. Ten years into a class action suit against the Chatree gold…
Conservation depends on rangers. Their wellbeing is often an afterthought
The gunfire began just before six in the morning. At first, Christine Lain thought it might be a drill. Upemba National Park had run exercises like this before. Rangers…
A profession built on hope, strained by loss
Earlier this month, Jeremy Hance’s “‘An epidemic of suffering’: Why are conservationists breaking down?” and the follow-up commentary “Emotional and psychological stresses beleaguer conservation professionals” by Vik Mohan and Nerissa…
Proboscis monkey found in Thailand adds to evidence of cross-border illegal trade
RATCHABURI, Thailand — On Jan. 6, residents of Samut Sakhon province, central Thailand, found an injured monkey near a railway track. Pot-bellied with reddish-brown fur and a prominent, upturned nose,…
Facebook shuts Indonesia groups after Mongabay and Bellingcat report illegal wildlife trade
This story was produced in collaboration with Bellingcat. Read their version here, and Mongabay-Indonesia's version here. JAKARTA — A new report by Mongabay and independent journalism organization Bellingcat has uncovered…
Cambodia’s Supreme Court denies release of five imprisoned environmental activists
Five environmental activists in Cambodia will remain in prison, where they have been for more than 622 days, after the country's Supreme Court decided not to allow them to go…
Cameroon’s decade of conflict leaves apes and conservationists in peril
In August 2025, Louis Nkembi, founder of conservation NGO ERuDeF, was abducted by militia fighters in Cameroon’s Lebialem Highlands. He was held for two weeks, hidden in a secret location…
Financing biodiversity: Lisa Miller on investing in nature
Lisa Miller did not arrive at biodiversity finance through spreadsheets or climate models. Her starting point was animals. Growing up in Australia, she was drawn to wildlife in a way…
On Mongabay’s legacy
I am often asked what Mongabay’s legacy is, or what it might turn out to be. The question usually comes with an assumption that a quarter-century of publishing should yield…
The conservation ledger: What we lost and what we gained in 2025
Extinction is rarely a moment. It is a process that unfolds offstage, marked by missed sightings, thinning records, and the slow reassignment of hope to footnotes. Discovery, too, is rarely…
Southeast Asia’s 2025 marked by fatal floods, fossil fuel expansion and renewed mining boom
BANGKOK — 2025 saw global conservation plunged into chaos, with an estimated $500 million in funding from the United States government abruptly slashed after Donald Trump returned to office. The…
The year in rainforests 2025: Deforestation fell; the risks did not
The story of the world’s tropical forests in 2025 was not one of dramatic reversal, but one shaped by accumulated pressure. In several regions, deforestation slowed. In others, loss continued…
2025: A year of consequence for Mongabay’s journalism
In 2025, environmental journalism faced a familiar paradox. The evidence was clearer than ever, but attention was harder to hold. Governments softened commitments and cut funding for programs many hold…
Environmental defenders & conservationists who died in 2025
I write short obituaries for people who spent their lives protecting parts of the natural world. I work on them in the margins of other responsibilities, yet they have become…
Rethinking how we talk about conservation—and why it matters
Founder's Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. For a movement so often framed by loss—and confronting a particularly difficult moment—conservation…
Marine heat waves and raw sewage combine to put human health at risk
Earlier this year, a spate of deaths in Florida caused by Vibrio vulnificus, known as the flesh-eating bacteria, made headlines. Infections of this kind are troublingly on the rise as…
Bearing witness to Indonesia’s environmental challenges: Sapariah Saturi
Indonesia’s environmental issues often feel too vast to take in at once. A nation said to have more than 17,000 islands, it contains the world’s third-largest tropical rainforest and one…
Cautious win for Indigenous groups in Malaysia as palm oil firm pauses forest clearing
Indigenous activists in central Sarawak state in Malaysian Borneo have declared victory, at least temporarily, after palm oil firm Urun Plantations agreed to a moratorium on clearing land in a…
New cluster of Tapanuli orangutans discovered in Sumatra peat swamp
CENTRAL TAPANULI, Indonesia — Since it was first described by scientists in 2017, the Tapanuli orangutan, one of the world’s rarest great apes, was believed to live only in the…
Connecting Indonesia’s environmental stories to millions
Before dawn breaks over Surabaya, Indonesia’s “City of Heroes,” Akhyari Hananto has already begun his day. After morning prayers, he opens Google Analytics to scan real-time graphs showing how Mongabay…
Building a global newsroom for a planet in crisis: A conversation with Willie Shubert
For Willie Shubert, journalism is a kind of cartography. “I studied geography,” he says. Mapmaking taught him how to see the world as a system. That systems view now guides…
Jane Goodall (1934–2025): primatologist, conservationist, and messenger of hope
Jane Goodall, who revealed the intimate lives of chimpanzees and gave the modern world a language of hope, has died at the age of 91. Over the course of six…
Philippine tribes revive reforestation to defy coal mining expansion
SOUTH COTABATO, Philippines — It’s been three years since production began at a coal mine in the mountain village of Ned, some 1,500 kilometers, nearly 1,000 miles, south of Manila,…
Ocean acidification threatens planetary health: Interview with Johan Rockström
Initiated in 2024, the Planetary Health Check is a comprehensive, science-based global initiative dedicated to measuring and maintaining Earth systems critical to life as we know it. These annual reports…
Consumed by convenience: The culture of disposability
When Saabira Chaudhuri began covering consumer-goods companies for The Wall Street Journal, she thought she was writing about marketing campaigns, product launches, and quarterly results. What she found instead was…
Navigating conservation’s crisis (commentary)
Call it a crossroads. Ecological decline is accelerating in too many places at once; institutions that once limited the damage are wobbling; the information channels we rely on to coordinate action are…
How journalism helps turn information into outcomes
The forest in northern Gabon didn’t look like a battleground. It was a patchwork of hunting trails and village paths, home to fruit trees and ancestral graves. When a…
The need for success stories in conservation (commentary)
The gorilla should have vanished. In the late 1980s, the mountain gorilla clung to survival in the misted borderlands of Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Poaching,…
Sunscreens protect us but also pose real planetary health concerns
Today’s beach outing is not the same as your grandparents’ beach outing: With intense summer heat waves now the norm due to climate change, and with the ozone layer still…
NGOs launch novel community projects to conserve Mexico’s ocelots
CONHUAS, Mexico — Esteban Dominguez has lived for more than 20 years close to one of the biggest conservation areas in southeastern Mexico — Calakmul Biosphere Reserve on the Yucatán…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Satellite data show burst of deforestation in Myanmar rare earth mining hotspots
- Narco airstrips beset Indigenous communities in Peruvian Amazon
- 15 illegal narco-trafficking airstrips found near Peru Indigenous communities
- Satellite data show bursts of deforestation continue in Indonesian national park
Oceans
- Tropics take the brunt as hotter oceans drive large-scale humid heat waves: Study
- Talks to reduce funding for overfishing remain stalled at WTO meeting
- New strategy to reverse Kenya’s shark decline tries to bring fishers on board
- Mongabay shark meat exposé wins national journalism education award in Brazil
Amazon Conservation
- Researchers eye jaguar conservation wins under Brazil Indigenous stewardship project
- ‘World’s largest’ carbon credit deal in the Amazon faces bumpy road ahead
- New conservation model calls for protecting Amazon for its archaeological riches
- Brazil dredges Amazon rivers to ease drought isolation, raising environmental concerns
Land rights and extractives
- As traditional forest governance erodes in Peru, ‘ghost permits’ fill the vacuum
- What’s happening with the global treaty to trace critical minerals?
- In the race for DRC’s critical minerals, community forests are on the frontline
- Lithium mining may threaten a precious resource — water: Voices from the land (commentary)
Endangered Environmentalists
- José Albino Cañas Ramírez, a defender of Indigenous territories, aged 44
- A killing with precedent: Kaiowá man’s murder fits a pattern in Brazil
- Environmental & rights activists flee and hide as M23 captures DRC’s cities
- Environmental journalist in Cambodia shot and killed by suspected logger
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- On a Borneo mountainside, Indigenous Dayak women hold fire and defend forest
- Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
Conservation Effectiveness
- How effective is the EU’s marquee policy to reduce the illegal timber trade?
- How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
- Failure in conservation projects: Everyone experiences it, few record it
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Flores’ geothermal ambitions collide with justice, culture & local resistance
- An ‘ocean grab’ for a property megaproject leaves Jakarta fishers grounded
- Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
