From rock music to rainforests: Akhyari Hananto’s unlikely path to impact

Founder s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Before dawn breaks over Surabaya, Indonesia’s “City of Heroes,” Akhyari Hananto is already at work. After morning prayers, he opens Google Analytics to watch the night’s reading patterns unfold — what stories drew attention, which headlines resonated, and where curiosity faded.

“That information often determines how I’ll prioritize my work for the rest of the day,” he says in an interview. By sunrise, he has already drafted ideas to reenergize audiences across the archipelago. As multimedia manager for Mongabay Indonesia, Hananto operates at the crossroads of creativity, data and strategy. His role blends production, design and analytics.

On any given day, he might be editing videos, managing social media channels or translating data insights into editorial tactics. “Everything I do connects to one central mission,” he says, “ensuring that Mongabay’s environmental journalism reaches, engages and resonates with audiences across Indonesia.” That mission carries urgency in a nation of 280 million people whose forests, peatlands and coral reefs are among the most biodiverse, and most threatened, on Earth.

For Hananto, who joined Mongabay in 2014, the work is deeply personal. “As an Indonesian, it’s impossible not to care,” he says. “These issues are unfolding right here, on our own islands.” His path to journalism was unconventional. A university student in Yogyakarta during the grunge era, he fronted a Pearl Jam-inspired rock band before entering banking, then humanitarian work after a devastating 2006 earthquake.

Later,...This article was originally published on Mongabay