Rhett Butler

Rhett Butler, founder and editor-in-chief of Mongabay, one of the world's most widely read environmental news services, speaks with Earth Live about independent journalism and the state of the world's forests.

Butler founded Mongabay in 1999 and has grown it into a global newsroom with bureaus across the tropics, publishing original reporting on forests, wildlife, and conservation in multiple languages. He discusses the challenges of funding independent environmental journalism, the importance of on-the-ground reporters who understand local contexts, and why telling the story of what is happening to the world's forests matters for policy and public opinion.

The conversation explores the major trends in tropical deforestation, the role of commodity supply chains, and what two decades of covering forest issues has taught him about the gap between what we know and what we do.