Insider News

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we implemented a travel moratorium for staff and contributing journalists in March 2020. In practice, this meant we stopped assigning stories that required travel…

In March 2020, just prior to COVID-19 being a pandemic, I spent a few days in the tri-border region of Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. There I used a drone to…

In early March 2020, I visited the tri-border area of Peru, Colombia, and Brazil and used the opportunity to explore a cluster of potential deforestation hotspots detected by Global Forest…

In the few years I’ve worked as a freelance journalist in Guyana I’ve been told by editors, “There’s not much interest in Guyana”; that two reports from the Caribbean in…

There’s no doubt 2019 was a bad news year for the planet, and for many of the more than 7.5 billion human beings inhabiting it — not to mention countless…

Mongabay's traffic hit a new record in 2019, with pageviews increasing 34% to 102 million and monthly active users climbing 50% to 4.3 million. But the high level numbers don't…

While I've written about use of drones in conservation since 2012 — a Mongabay story was the first to use the term "conservation drones" — 2019 was the first year…

VIRUNGA NATIONAL PARK, Democratic Republic of Congo — Seven meters. It’s one of the first instructions you get from the guides at Virunga National Park, nestled against the eastern border…

One fine day in late November in 1998, while standing on a knife-edged, precipitous ridge some 3,500 meters (11,500 feet) above sea level in Bolivia’s Cordillera Apolobamba, I came across…

When I was growing up, I always thought I would become a writer. I loved reading and writing, and excelled at both from a young age. But when I was…

The dry forest of western Madagascar is famous for its wildlife and baobab trees, including the tourist destinations of Baobab Alley, Tsingy de Bemaraha, and Kirindy Forest. Among the species…

In 2007, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) launched the Heart of Borneo, an initiative that aimed to conserve 22 million hectares (54 million acres) in the transboundary area…

Don Lizardo was sitting in his hammock, rocking gently back and forth, as he told us heartbreaking stories about working in haciendas when he was younger. We were sitting in…

Borneo has been special to me since my earliest years. As a kid, I would voraciously read books about the wilds of Borneo, with its dense rainforests inhabited by traditional…

GEORGETOWN, Guyana - From the time I was old enough to recognize my real desires and ambitions, I knew I wanted to be a journalist. I had always been a…

I’ve been sitting on a bench inside the small waiting room at the Liberia Business Registry just off the main drag in downtown Monrovia when the phrase pops into my…

Near the Arctic Circle in late summer 2011, I waited at a petrol station on the outskirts of a large tract of Sweden’s boreal forest. My Volvo had completely cooled…

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — As the sun began to set behind the mountains of far northern Vietnam, two plainclothes policemen barged into the country house where I was…

I grew up in Southern California, just north of Los Angeles, and spent time in nature consistently throughout my childhood. I credit the under-the-radar natural wonderland of Southern California, as…

One of the most popular tourist destinations in East Africa is Kenya’s Maasai Mara,. The Maasai Mara, a tract of savanna, is famous for its abundant wildlife, especially large populations…

About eight years ago when I was still fairly new to the reporter game in New York City, these two journalists I knew were killed while working in Libya. One…

As I described in the origin story post, Mongabay had a very modest beginning. I never had any intention of making a living, let alone a career, out of running…

It is easy to forget that change starts with one person. In a world that is increasingly connected through mobile phones and the internet, especially social media, it is easier…

Suriname is a country few people have heard of, let alone visited. Located in the northeast corner of South America, Suriname is almost completely covered in rainforest. It has the…

Madagascar also has great frogs, but what fascinated me about the island was a more unusual type of beast: the chameleon. Since the first time I laid eyes on a…

Madagascar has been called the “Great Red Island,” and from space, astronauts have remarked it looks like it is bleeding to death. Soil conditions and poorly vegetated hillsides mean Madagascar…

Frogs are incredible creatures. Usually born in water, most live the first stages of their life essentially as a fish, before undergoing a radical metamorphosis that transforms them into an…

One of the few benefits of having a father who had to fly each week from San Francisco to meet clients in Hawaii and Alaska during my formative years was…

Nothing can really prepare a person for coming face-to-face with what may be the last of a species. I had known for a week that I would be fortunate enough…

If you could turn back the clock about 200 years, you could watch as millions of whales swam along their migration routes. Around 150 years ago, you could witness bison…