From college graduate’s apartment project to global environmental newsroom: how mongabay became a force for forest protection

What started as a hand-coded website in a recent college graduate’s apartment has evolved into one of the world’s most influential environmental news organizations. Rhett Butler launched Mongabay in 1999 with nothing more than a passion for rainforests, field notes from expeditions across Borneo and Madagascar, and a troubling awareness that these precious ecosystems were disappearing faster than the public realized.

Butler’s grassroots approach to environmental journalism has yielded remarkable real-world impact over the past two decades. Mongabay’s investigative reporting has helped halt illegal logging concessions in Gabon, exposed planned rainforest destruction in Peru, and earned the trust of Indigenous leaders worldwide who rely on the platform to share their stories authentically. “Journalism doesn’t plant trees or prosecute illegal loggers, but it creates the conditions that make those things possible,” Butler reflected in a recent interview.

This mission-driven focus led to a pivotal transformation in 2012, when Butler converted Mongabay from an advertising-dependent website to a nonprofit organization. The change freed the platform from chasing clicks and allowed it to prioritize environmental impact instead. This shift enabled rapid international expansion, with Mongabay establishing dedicated operations in Indonesia, Latin America, India, and beyond.

Today, Mongabay collaborates with over 1,000 journalists across approximately 85 countries, many of whom are deeply embedded in the communities they cover. This extensive network of local correspondents provides the organization with unparalleled insight into environmental issues affecting forests and biodiversity worldwide, setting it apart in the increasingly crowded media landscape.