Rhett Butler

1 week ago | news.mongabay.com | Rhett Butler

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. In a quiet corner of northern New York state, the white pines of the Adirondack Forest Preserve rise like sentinels, untouched for more than 125 years. Their silence speaks volumes. These towering trees, some 150 feet (about 46 meters) tall and more than a century old, stand as evidence of a counterintuitive climate solution: do nothing. Well, not quite nothing.

1 week ago | envirolink.org | Rhett Butler

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. At a time when traditional news outlets are shedding reporters and chasing clicks, Mongabay is bucking the trend: it’s growing. One key, says David Martin, our director of philanthropy, is that Mongabay isn’t selling ads or stoking outrage — it’s cultivating trust.

2 weeks ago | envirolink.org | Rhett Butler

Brazil is facing an alarming surge in forest fires. Last year, the country registered 237,000 fires and over 30.8 million hectares of vegetation were consumed by flames—an area the size of Italy. This represented a 79% increase in areas burned compared to 2023. The Amazon rainforest bore the brunt, accounting for 58% of the total burned area. The threat of more fires during the 2025 fire season prompted the Brazilian government to declare a nationwide environmental emergency.

3 weeks ago | envirolink.org | Rhett Butler

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay’s founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives, and story summaries.   Global efforts to restore forests are gathering pace, driven by promises of combating climate change, conserving biodiversity and improving livelihoods. Yet a recent review published in Nature Reviews Biodiversity warns that the biodiversity gains from these initiatives are often overstated — and sometimes absent altogether.

3 weeks ago | envirolink.org | Rhett Butler

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Human activity is reshaping life on Earth in profound and alarming ways. A landmark study published in Nature offers the most comprehensive synthesis to date of how five primary anthropogenic pressures — habitat change, pollution, climate change, resource exploitation, and invasive species — are affecting biodiversity across all major ecosystems and taxa.