About Mongabay

 

Mongabay is a nonprofit environmental science and conservation news platform that produces original reporting in English, Indonesian, Spanish, French, Hindi, and Brazilian Portuguese by leveraging over 800 correspondents in some 70 countries. We are dedicated to evidence-driven objective journalism.

Our main beats are forests, wildlife, oceans, and the conservation sector. We also undertake special reporting projects, which are deep dives on specific topics and geographies. We offer a variety of newsletters and RSS / XML feeds and have a presence on various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Mongabay’s readership includes officials in development agencies, natural resources management ministries, scientists, business leaders, and civil society, among others.

Our articles are syndicated by dozens of local, national, regional, and international outlets ranging from National Geographic Indonesia to Smithsonian Magazine, extending our reach beyond our 8 million monthly web site visitors.

More information about Mongabay

Please see Mongabay.org for more information about the organization itself, including annual reports and financial filings, like the 990 and IRS Determination Letter.

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Mongabay’s origins

Rhett A. Butler founded Mongabay.com in 1999 out of his passion for tropical forests. He called the site Mongabay after an island in Madagascar.

Since then, Mongabay has grown into the world’s most popular rainforest information site and a well-known source of environmental news reporting and analysis. Today Mongabay draws five million visitors per month on average and publishes stories in six languages daily. Its reporting is commonly cited by mainstream media in their own reporting, including The New York Times, The Economist, Bloomberg, National Geographic, and Associated Press. Mongabay is also widely recognized as an accurate and trust-worthy source by civil society organizations as well as development agencies.

Over the years Mongabay’s impact has been substantial. Articles on the site have sparked protests in Madagascar against a French shipping company transporting timber logged illegally from rainforest reserves and helped block destructive projects like a plan to log 70 percent of Woodlark Island off New Guinea for a giant oil palm plantation. Mongabay stories have influenced investment flows and policy decisions, prompted official investigations, and inspired art.

In 2012 Mongabay.org was formed to facilitate the development of new education and journalism initiatives and leverage its existing network, traffic, and reputation. Mongabay.org aims to raise awareness about social and environmental issues relating to forests and other ecosystems.

The first project under Mongabay.org was the launch of Mongabay.co.id, an Indonesian environmental news service run by a team of Indonesians. Mongabay launched the Spanish-language Mongabay-Latam in 2016, Mongabay-India in 2018, the Portuguese-language Mongabay-Brasil in 2019, and Mongabay-Hindi in 2020.

Mongabay News was moved to the non-profit in 2015 and all the news content produced to that point was donated to the organization.

Mongabay Staff

Meet the whole global team at Mongabay.org

The Mongabay Board

Meet Mongabay’s board and advisory panel at Mongabay.org

Officers

  • Holt Thrasher (Chairman and Treasurer of the Board) has more than 35 years’ experience in investment banking, information technology, and consulting. He is currently Founder and CEO of Synovia Capital, an investment fund focused on ecosystem management within the data analytics sector. Holt is an active conservationist and nature enthusiast and serves as Trustee and Treasurer of the National Marine Sanctuaries Foundation and was formerly Chairman of the National Audubon Society.
  • Triona Gogarty (Secretary of the Board) is a speech-language pathologist and elementary school teacher with 35 years’ experience working in early development and literacy.

Directors

  • Dr. Brodie Ferguson is an anthropologist and forest carbon project developer working with indigenous communities in Colombia and Brazil (Colombia/USA).
  • Jeanne Sedgwick is the former director of the Conservation Program at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. She is currently vice chairman of the Resources Legacy Fund in Sacramento, California, and vice chair of the Stanford Habitat Conservation Board. is the former director of the Conservation Program at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. She is currently vice chairman of the Resources Legacy Fund in Sacramento, California, and vice chair of the Stanford Habitat Conservation Board.
  • Kristin Rechberger is works to reform capital markets to help restore nature, contributing to more just and equitable societies. She is founder and CEO of Dynamic Planet, a firm that advances and invests in nature-based solutions (USA).
  • Mark Cappellano is a conservationist and entrepreneur based in Los Angeles. He is a managing partner of several ventures and is active with several other NGOs.
  • Peter Riggs was the founder and director of the Forum on Democracy & Trade before joining the Ford Foundation as a program officer. He is now an advisor at CLUA.
  • Rhett A. Butler is the founder and CEO of Mongabay. He lives in California.
  • Robin Martin is a professor of geography at Arizona State University where she works to connect place-based science in forests and reefs with remote sensing. She is also co-founder and co-director of the non-profit Hawaii Marine Education and Research Center which connects communities, NGOs, and state institutions with timely scientific information on the marine environment in the Hawaiian Islands (USA).
  • Steve McCormick is the former president of The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the former president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy (TNC). He now runs The Earth Genome, a global, open-source database on ecosystem services and natural capital.
  • Tim Kelly is the former president of the National Geographic Society, conceiving of and leading the development of the National Geographic Channels.

Advisory council

  • Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, is a primatologist, author, and conservation icon. She is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a UN Messenger of Peace (UK)
  • Dr. William F. Laurance is a rainforest ecologist now based at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia. He was formerly at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution (Australia/USA)
  • Dr. Peter Raven is a botanist who was formerly the director of the Missouri Botanical Garden. Today he is President Emeritus of the institution. (USA)
  • Aida Greenbury an Indonesian forester who for 13 years worked on sustainability issues at Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), one of the world’s largest integrated forestry, pulp and paper groups. Aida left APP in May 2017 to become an independent sustainability advisor. (Indonesia)
  • Dr. Christopher Herndon is a physician focusing on reproductive health and ethnobotanist with experience in Peru, Suriname, Colombia, and Venezuela (USA)
  • Cynthia M. Adams is currently CEO of GrantStation and has spent her career helping nonprofits identify and secure the funding and raising funds to help set-aside public lands in Alaska (Mexico/USA)

Non-Voting Members