2025: A year of consequence for Mongabay’s journalism

Public fatigue was real, shaped by anxiety over the state of the planet, political polarization, a deteriorating information environment, and pressure on democratic institutions and press freedom. Yet decisions with long tails were still being made—often discreetly, locally, and with incomplete information. This was the context in which Mongabay worked. 2025 also brought losses that landed close to home, including the deaths of Ochieng Ogodo, Mongabay’s East Africa editor, and Jane Goodall, a longtime Advisory Council member whose work reshaped how the world understands and values animals.

Their passing sits within a broader year of loss for environmental defenders and conservation practitioners. Mongabay marked many of these lives through dozens of tributes, aiming to honor individuals by making their work visible beyond their immediate circles, so others could carry it forward.

That approach reflects Mongabay’s growing emphasis on solutions reporting as a way to show where progress is possible, even when the odds seem long. As an organization, Mongabay will publish more than 7,300 stories across eight languages in 2025. Two of those—Swahili and Bengali—were new this year. Traffic is not impact in itself.

But reach matters when it puts information in the hands of people who can use it. We expect website readership to exceed 110 million unique visitors in 2025,...This article was originally published on Mongabay