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…
Green News
Jeff Foott, chronicler of ice, rock, and change, has died, aged 80
For much of the second half of the 20th century, the American outdoors attracted a particular kind of devotee. They moved easily between disciplines, took seasonal work without much…
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…
Tech alone won’t stop poaching, but it’s changing how rangers work
As anti-poaching techniques have improved over the years, poachers have increasingly used technology to evade detection by patrols and park rangers. Now, conservationists are rising to the challenge of the…
The value of journalism in the AI era
The arrival of generative artificial intelligence has unsettled journalism in familiar ways. Traffic models look fragile. Copyright is contested. The marginal cost of producing words has collapsed. It is tempting…
Philippines’ newest marine protected area ‘sets inspiring example’ (commentary)
Climate change is pushing coral reefs to the brink. A new scientific report warns that the world has already crossed its first climate tipping point, and reefs could face long-term…
The vanishing pharmacy: How climate change is reshaping traditional medicine
Gyatso Bista remembers the sacks of kutki. As a child learning to become a healer in Nepal's kingdom of Lo Manthang, Bista would watch as heaps of the bitter-tasting herb,…
Nepal’s cities must plan for resilience and inclusion for the future & nature (commentary)
The transformation of Nepal's urban landscape has brought us to a pivotal moment. Having observed this evolution as an environmental engineer, I believe its current growth trajectory is unsustainable, despite…
What would this scientist tell Trump? Interview with Robert Watson, former chair of the IPCC
When U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the United Nations General Assembly in late 2025 and dismissed climate change as a “con job”, the scientific community reacted with alarm. Months earlier,…
Iain Douglas-Hamilton, elephant protector, has died at 83
For nearly six decades, Iain Douglas-Hamilton worked across the savannas of Africa, his scientific focus fixed on its largest inhabitants — the elephants. It was said he could identify an…
New underwater acoustic camera identifies individual fish sounds, helping track threatened species
Fish were discovered to make sounds more than 2,000 years ago, but they have gone largely unheard by humans. While a typical, bustling coral reef may be home to dozens…
Reforestation and wild pig decline spark surge in miniature deer in Singapore
Rabbit-sized, nocturnal and elusive, the greater mouse-deer hadn’t been seen in Singapore for more than 80 years. Researchers long presumed it was locally extinct. In 2008, however, researchers confirmed sightings…
Another threat to reefs: Microplastic chemicals may harm coral reproduction
As the sliver of a new moon shines over Kāneʻohe Bay, Oʻahu, millions of tiny orbs ascend from a reef and swirl in the water column. These spheres are bundles…
Jean Beasley, who turned her young daughter’s dying wish into a mission to save sea turtles, has died
On the beaches of Topsail Island in North Carolina, the sight of a sea turtle crawling ashore has long signaled both urgency and hope. For many years, a woman with…
Saving critical winter habitat for monarch butterflies may depend on buy-in from their human neighbors
The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) population has plummeted by 80% to 95% since the 1990s, depending on the region and monitoring method. A major cause of the species’ decline is…
Unequal access to nature: Few outdoor spaces in Europe and the U.S. accommodate sensory, mental disabilities
Sprawled along the Pacific coastline near San Francisco, Golden Gate National Recreation Area is full of wildflowers, beaches, and old-growth coastal redwoods, shrouded with a thin layer of marine fog…
Predators in peril: Protected areas cover just a fraction of global carnivore ranges
Slinking beneath the greenery of the Amazon is a cat whose territory far exceeds its stature. Despite weighing less than the average housecat, scientists say the northern tiger cat (Leopardus…
Octopuses use their arms to sense and respond to microbiomes on the seafloor
From the beginning of life on Earth, microbes, small but influential single-celled organisms, have shaped the environment that animals must adapt to in order to survive. Distinct microbial populations, known…
Lemurs are being eaten as an urban delicacy in Madagascar
Founder's Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. In Madagascar’s cities, a quiet but lucrative market is reshaping the future of…
Mongabay Latam wins the Global Shining Light Award for investigative journalism
Founder's Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Few newsrooms venture far into the darker corners of the Amazon. Fewer still…
A killing with precedent: Kaiowá man’s murder fits a pattern in Brazil
Founder's Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Early on November 16th, gunfire broke the quiet around Pyelito Kue in southern…
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…
A forest worth more standing: Virgilio Viana on what it will take to protect the Amazon
The first time Virgilio Viana saw the Amazon up close, he was a 16-year-old with a backpack, two school friends and very little sense of what he was walking into.…
A slowdown, not salvation: what new extinction data reveal about the state of life on Earth
For decades, biologists have warned that humanity is precipitating a sixth mass extinction. By some estimates, species are vanishing at up to a thousand times the natural background rate. Yet…
At her memorial, a call to carry Jane Goodall’s hope forward
Today the nave of Washington National Cathedral was filled for Jane Goodall’s celebration of life, drawing scientists, activists, diplomats, and children alike. The service opened not in mourning but in…
New directory helps donors navigate the complex world of global reforestation
Planting trees is something most people can get behind, and tens of thousands of reforestation projects now operate worldwide. However, for donors and funders who want to support these efforts,…
Sierra Leone communities sign carbon agreement based on carbon justice principles
More than 220 communities in Sierra Leone have signed a benefit-sharing carbon agreement with a developer that will help protect a key mangrove ecosystem. Namati Sierra Leone, a legal advocacy…
Coal-dependent South Africa struggles to make just energy transition real
In the coal towns of northern KwaZulu-Natal, the promise of South Africa’s “just transition” feels like a distant dream. While government plans speak of a fair shift to clean energy…
What does the just energy transition mean for Africa?
When two Mongabay reporters visited the village of Lukwangulo in the Democratic Republic of Congo, they encountered a reality that’s common in many parts of rural Africa: Families spend valuable…
A blueprint for communicating about the Amazon rainforest (commentary)
I recently contributed a section on how to communicate about the Amazon for the “Amazonia in Danger” report, a collection of 22 articles written by 55 authors from different fields.…
Three tracks to rescue 1.5°C: fossil exit, forest protection, and nature’s carbon (commentary)
The planet just crossed a grim milestone: last year’s global temperature averaged more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, shredding our margin for error under the Paris Agreement. That doesn’t doom…
Brazil can protect its forests while growing its economy, says Arapyaú’s Renata Piazzon
Brazil’s climate conversation has a habit of returning to the same question: how can a country that depends so much on its natural riches also protect them? Renata Piazzon, who…
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
- Mongabay shark meat exposé wins national journalism education award in Brazil
- Indigenous concerns surface as U.S. agency considers seabed mining in Alaskan waters
- Methane chasers: Hunting a climate-changing gas seeping from Earth’s seafloor
- Scientists call for stronger action to save Indonesia’s vanishing seagrass meadows
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
- 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)
- Indigenous guardians successfully keep extractives out of Ecuador’s Amazon forests
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
