Rhett Butler

In a recent post I noted that Mongabay’s evergreen content has been getting crushed in the AI chatbot era, but that our news traffic is surging. A large part of this trend is referral traffic from Google Discover, the AI-powered recommendation engine that suggests stories on Android devices and other Google surfaces. Through the first [Continue reading]

On June 19th, 2015, Philippine officials raided a warehouse on Palawan and found thousands of turtles in cement tanks. More than 3,800 were endangered Palawan forest turtles, a species known only from the island and nearby Dumaran. The turtles were piled as many as a dozen deep, awaiting export. Some had ulcers on the undersides [Continue reading]

German biologist Sabine Schoppe, who built a refuge for endangered Palawan forest turtles and led their conservation, has died at 63.

Since USAID was dismantled, wildlife patrols, forest monitoring and community conservation projects worldwide are seeking replacement funding.

Researchers use AI to analyze thousands of hours of Yellowstone wolf recordings, potentially offering a way to identify and track wolves.

Cuts to international aid have left conservation organizations facing major funding shortfalls, while growing private philanthropy cannot replace the money lost.

As delegates gather in Yerevan, Armenia for the U.N.’s COP17 biodiversity summit, I thought it might be useful to put together a list of large nonprofit organizations involved in international conservation. The list includes NGOs involved in international conservation or environmental work whose average annual expenses exceeded $100 million over the past three years. Figures [Continue reading]

If Flávio Bolonaro wins Brazil's 25 October runoff election the consequences for the environment will be enormous, especially in the Amazon but also for the world.

Governments voted 83 to 12 at the UN's main forum on organized crime to negotiate the first global protocol against environmental crimes including timber, minerals, wildlife and waste tracking.

Last week I shared data on the world’s largest NGOs working on nature conservation across borders. As always when I update these data, people had strong feelings and lots of questions. Among the caveats I listed was the challenge of including zoos and aquariums. Many have field conservation programs but do not disclose how much [Continue reading]