Mongabay launches dedicated wildlife desk to combat accelerating species loss crisis

As wildlife populations face unprecedented threats from habitat destruction, climate change, and human encroachment, environmental news organization Mongabay has announced the creation of a specialized Wildlife Desk to intensify coverage of the global biodiversity crisis.

“We are losing species at an astounding rate, with declines compounded by increasingly extreme weather events, disease, and diminishing, fragmented habitat,” explains Sharon Guynup, Mongabay’s contributing editor for wildlife. The alarming pace of species decline has highlighted a critical need for more comprehensive reporting that connects local conservation efforts with global environmental trends.

The new Wildlife Desk represents a strategic expansion of Mongabay’s editorial capabilities, designed to coordinate coverage across the organization’s international network of journalists. Led by a core team including Guynup, executive editor Willie Shubert, and staff writer Spoorthy Raman, the desk will focus on linking local wildlife stories to broader regional and global patterns affecting biodiversity.

This initiative builds on Mongabay’s established approach of prioritizing coverage based on ecological boundaries rather than political ones. “Mongabay’s editorial focus is biodiversity hotspots, and we’ve long considered softer natural boundaries like biomes and watersheds above hard administrative borders,” notes Shubert. The Wildlife Desk will leverage this philosophy to provide audiences with deeper insights into how environmental changes affect both wildlife populations and the human communities that share their habitats, supporting the information needs of conservationists and organizations working to address biodiversity loss worldwide.