- Mongabay’s founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler writes short obituaries—over 70 in 2025—for people who devoted their lives to protecting the natural world, returning to this work consistently alongside my his responsibilities.
- The individuals he writes about are less defined by titles than by posture—standing between living systems and the forces eroding them, often for decades, largely unseen, and at real personal cost.
- These pieces aim neither to lionize nor to despair, but to clarify—showing how protection happens through sustained, imperfect choices made by ordinary people who kept showing up.
I write short obituaries for people who spent their lives protecting parts of the natural world. I work on them in the margins of other responsibilities, yet they have become a constant. In 2025, I produced over 70.
The people I write about are often described as conservationists, scientists, activists, or defenders. Those labels are accurate, but incomplete. What unites them is not a profession so much as a posture: they stood between something living and the forces wearing it down. They did so for decades, usually without much recognition and often at personal cost.
Some of the names will be widely recognized. Others will mean little to most readers. That imbalance is part of the point. Public memory tends to favor visibility over impact, and charisma over endurance. Yet many of the most consequential figures in environmental protection work far from cameras and conferences. They negotiate land boundaries, calm conflicts, train rangers, translate science, or stay when leaving would be easier. Their influence is cumulative, and it rarely lends itself to headlines.
Writing about death has a clarifying effect. Obituaries strip away what is temporary. What remains is a record of choices. Again and again, the lives I wrote about this year followed a similar arc: an encounter with a place or species, a long commitment to its survival, and years of persistence within systems that were often indifferent or hostile. Success, where it came, was partial. Failure was common. Quitting was always an option, and usually declined.
These pieces are not meant to lionize the people they describe. I try to avoid smoothing over contradictions or inflating legacies. Nor are they exercises in despair. Taken together, they aim to offer something more practical: evidence that stewardship is not an abstract idea, but a daily practice carried out by individuals. People with families, doubts, tempers, and limits. People who showed up anyway.
What follows is a record of lives spent guarding parts of the Earth that cannot speak for themselves, and of what endurance can look like, one life at a time.
Form to submit the name of an environmental defender who died in 2025 and is not already on this list.
People
Abel Rodríguez, artist who drew a vanishing forest from memory
Displaced from the Colombian Amazon by conflict, he redrew the rainforest from memory, translating generations of Indigenous knowledge into intricate ink drawings. He insisted his work was not art but remembrance—an act of resistance against forgetting what exists and what has been lost.
Ajith Kumar, Indian wildlife biologist
A wildlife biologist and educator, he shaped India’s conservation science through both research and mentorship. His greatest impact lay in the generations of scientists he trained to think critically about ecology and protection.
Aloyce Mwakisoma, keeper of forest knowledge
Born in Tanzania’s Kilombero Valley, he became one of the Eastern Arc Mountains’ most respected field botanists, carrying deep, place-based knowledge of forest plants that scientists relied on as much as instruments. Killed days before his wedding, he left behind five children and forests shaped by what he knew and restored.
Andrew Kassoy, champion of stakeholder capitalism
A co-founder of B Lab, he helped turn stakeholder capitalism from a fringe idea into an operational system with rules, incentives, and accountability. He believed durable change came not from heroic individuals, but from defaults that made it easier for institutions to act decently.
Arturo Gómez-Pompa, biologist who revealed the human history in “virgin” forests
A biologist who challenged the idea of untouched “virgin” forests, he revealed how Indigenous management shaped tropical ecosystems over centuries. His work reframed conservation as a human–nature relationship rather than a quest to erase people from landscapes.
In eastern Congo’s war-torn forests, Augustin Basabose gave hope to gorillas and people
One of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s first primatologists, he trained a generation of conservationists while insisting that gorillas could not be saved without communities. Through science, mentoring, and forest restoration, he helped make recovery imaginable in a region long shaped by conflict.
Barbara Yeaman, aviator and conservation pioneer
At 70, she founded the Delaware Highlands Conservancy, eventually helping protect more than 20,000 acres of land through patient, voluntary agreements. A former WWII pilot, she preferred working “beneath the radar,” believing conservation succeeded best without spectacle.
Bethany “Bee” Smith, researcher who swam with one of the rarest sharks, aged 24
A young marine biologist, she combined field research with public communication to draw attention to some of the ocean’s least understood sharks. After years of preparation, she documented a live megamouth shark, an encounter achieved by very few. She died at 24 during a freediving accident while working on a shark conservation project in Indonesia.
Chief Kokoi, defender of the Rupununi
A leader in Guyana’s Rupununi, he defended Indigenous land against encroachment while insisting that stewardship and sovereignty were inseparable. His authority rested less on title than on presence and long memory.
Chris Allnutt, negotiator who helped protect the Great Bear Rainforest
A quiet negotiator, he played a central role in protecting Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest by helping broker agreements among governments, industry, and Indigenous Nations. He was remembered for patience, restraint, and an ability to make progress without raising his voice.
Claude Nguo and Daniel Kakule, rangers lost in the line of duty in Virunga plane crash
Both were rangers in Virunga National Park, killed in a plane crash while carrying out their duties. Their deaths joined a long list of losses borne quietly by those tasked with protecting one of Africa’s most contested landscapes.
Cristina Gallardo, 39, a devoted guardian of Spain’s wild places, is lost to a fall
An environmental agent trained for cliffs, caves, and ravines, she protected species that survive only in places most people cannot reach. Friends and colleagues remembered her as generous, cheerful, and brave—someone who showed up when the task was hardest and made others better.
Daniel Ole Sambu, an architect of coexistence between people and lions
Working beneath Mount Kilimanjaro, he helped build trust between pastoralist communities and conservation groups, making coexistence with lions possible in places where retaliation had long seemed inevitable. He understood that conservation succeeds only when people believe it serves them too.
Daripalli Ramaiah, India’s tree man
Known as India’s “Tree Man,” he planted millions of saplings over six decades, measuring his life in trees rather than years. He lived simply and believed that planting was both penance and promise.
David Myers, conservationist and land broker for nature
A conservationist who spoke the language of developers, he engineered land deals that protected millions of acres across the American West. His tally resembled a real estate ledger, but the outcome was deserts, canyons, and parks saved from development.
Derek Pomeroy, a leading figure in Ugandan ornithology
A central figure in Ugandan ornithology, he combined rigorous science with institution-building that helped sustain bird research across East Africa. His influence lived on through the students and scientists he trained.
Diane Keaton, actress and animal advocate
Best known as an actor, she also became a persistent advocate for animals, lending time, money, and visibility to causes often overlooked. Her advocacy was practical rather than performative, focused on protection rather than praise.
Donovan Kirkwood, South African botanist
A South African botanist, he devoted his career to rescuing plants on the brink of extinction, often in degraded scraps of land others overlooked. He died during fieldwork, pursuing one of the rarest plants in the world.
Drew Stokes, Southern California’s bat biologist
Southern California’s leading bat biologist, he helped reshape public understanding of animals more often feared than studied. His work combined science, outreach, and an insistence that even unpopular species deserve care.
Edward McNabb, pioneer of conservation bioacoustics
A pioneer of conservation bioacoustics, he helped turn sound into a tool for understanding and protecting ecosystems. By listening closely, he made it possible to monitor life where sight alone could not reach.
Elisabeth Vrba, the woman who timed evolution
A paleontologist who reshaped evolutionary theory, she argued that climate-driven upheavals—not gradual competition—drove bursts of extinction and speciation. Her work taught scientists to read the fossil record as a chronicle of environmental change.
Francisco Marupa, killed because he stood in the way
An Indigenous leader of the Leco people, he defended Bolivia’s Madidi forests against miners and land traffickers. He was murdered for standing in the way, becoming one more voice in the long roll call of silenced land defenders.
Fred Kirschenmann, organic farming pionee
An organic farming pioneer, he transformed a 2,600-acre North Dakota wheat farm into a model of soil-centered agriculture and spent the next half-century arguing that healthy food systems begin with living soil. Bridging philosophy and practice, he became one of the most trusted voices in rethinking industrial agriculture for an era of climate and resource limits.
Gayatri Reksodihardjo-Lilley rebuilt reefs one village at a time
Working village by village in Indonesia, she helped communities rebuild coral reefs through trust, patience, and shared stewardship. She left behind no monuments, only reefs that are growing again.
Hamid Moradi died after battling a forest fire in Iranian Kurdistan
A volunteer forest defender in Iran’s Kurdistan region, he died at 36 after battling a wildfire. His death underscored the human cost increasingly borne by those standing between flames and forests.
Hema Sane, botanist who lived without electricity
A botanist in Pune who turned her life into an experiment in ecological consistency, she lived for decades without electricity, writing by daylight or kerosene lamp and teaching generations of students to see science and culture as branches of the same tree. She insisted that living gently on the earth was possible even in the heart of a modern city.
Iain Douglas-Hamilton, elephant protector
For nearly six decades, he dedicated his life to Africa’s elephants, combining close observation with technological innovation to track migrations and fight poaching. He founded Save the Elephants and helped drive the global ban on ivory, leaving a legacy that continues in the collars still transmitting data across the continent.
James ‘Buddy’ Powell, defender of manatees
A leading defender of manatees, he combined research with hands-on rescue and policy engagement. Gentle and methodical, he believed evidence mattered only if it led to protection.
Jane Goodall, messenger of hope
Her patient fieldwork at Gombe transformed understanding of chimpanzees and forced science to reckon with animal minds and emotions. She later became a global messenger of hope, insisting that empathy and action could coexist and that hope itself was a discipline.
Jayantha Jayewardene, Sri Lanka’s elephant advocate
Sri Lanka’s foremost elephant advocate, he worked to reduce conflict between people and elephants through science, dialogue, and persistence. He argued that coexistence was not idealism, but necessity.
Jean Beasley turned her young daughter’s dying wish into a mission to save sea turtles
After her daughter died of leukemia, she honored a final request by devoting her life to sea turtles, walking North Carolina beaches before dawn and founding the state’s first sea turtle rehabilitation center. Since 1995, her work has protected thousands of nests and helped hundreds of thousands of hatchlings reach the sea.
Joanna Macy turned despair into agency
A guide to ecological awareness, she helped people face despair without retreating into denial or false optimism. By treating grief and fear as evidence of connection rather than failure, she showed how attention, shared honestly, could reopen the possibility of collective action in a damaged world.
Jeff Foott, climber and conservation photographer,
A climber, marine biologist, and conservation photographer, Jeff Foott spent his life working in wild places and translating them for others. Over more than four decades, his films and photographs helped bring attention to species and landscapes under strain. He made his case quietly, leaving persuasion to the images themselves.
Jim Brandenburg, conservation photographer
A master of patience, his photographs of wolves and wilderness reshaped how millions perceived the natural world. Beyond the lens, he worked to protect prairies, educate children, and ensure that reverence for nature translated into action.
Jim Estes, biologist who revealed how sea otters shape entire ecosystems
A marine biologist whose work on sea otters revealed how predators shape entire ecosystems, he gave empirical weight to the keystone species concept. His patient fieldwork showed that the loss of a single species could transform coastlines, economies, and cultures.
John Landsiedel, Alaska wildlife biologist and pilot
An Alaska wildlife biologist and pilot, he died at 33 while doing fieldwork in the landscapes he loved. His work required both scientific skill and physical courage, often far from help.
John Robbins, heir to an ice cream empire who chose a life of principle
Heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune, he walked away from wealth to argue that food choices were moral choices. His life became a case study in choosing principle over inheritance.
Kallur Balan, India’s “Friend of the Forest”
Known as Kerala’s “Friend of the Forest,” he transformed barren hills into living ecosystems through decades of solitary planting and care. He asked little of the world and left behind forests that speak for him.
M Marika, custodian of Yolŋu land and culture
A custodian of Yolŋu land and culture, he worked to protect Indigenous knowledge systems alongside the landscapes they emerged from. For him, culture and country were inseparable.
Mamai Lucille Williams defended her land, and lost it
An Amerindian elder from Guyana’s North Pakaraimas, she became a symbol of Indigenous land rights after miners destroyed the home and farm she had tended for more than seventy years. She was remembered not for what she owned, but for what she refused to surrender: the idea that land is not property, but memory made visible.
Marc Stalmans helped rebuild a shattered Eden
As science director at Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park, he helped guide the recovery of an ecosystem devastated by civil war, grounding rewilding decisions in rigorous data. He believed science mattered only insofar as it helped life return.
Marielle Ramires, Brazilian activist and environmental communicator
A co-founder of Brazil’s independent media network Mídia NINJA, she worked quietly behind the scenes to amplify environmental justice, Indigenous rights, and grassroots movements. Even while facing cancer, she framed struggle as collective care, insisting that “the solution must be collective.”
Maruti Bhujangrao Chitampalli, sage of the forest
Known as the “sage of the forest,” he translated Indigenous and rural ecological knowledge into language science could hear. His writing preserved ways of seeing nature that modernization threatened to erase.
Mathias Espinosa, Galápagos dive pioneer and conservationist
A journalist turned dive pioneer, he helped open the Galápagos’ underwater world to thousands by co-founding the islands’ first day-trip diving operation. With more than 10,000 dives logged, he asked visitors to treat the archipelago as a test of human restraint rather than conquest.
Mikayla Raines, YouTuber who gave her life to the animals no one else wanted
Through online platforms, she built a refuge for animals few others would take, combining transparency with relentless care. She died at 30, leaving behind lives saved and a community shaped by compassion.
Mikkel Larsen, carbon exchange leader and sustainability advocate
A finance executive who believed markets could serve nature, he worked to bring integrity to carbon trading and nature-related disclosures. Colleagues remembered him as principled, pragmatic, and driven by a belief that capital could heal rather than harm.
Neddy Mulimo, a defender of rangers as well as wildlife
A Zambian ranger and anti-poaching leader, he spent nearly four decades on the front lines of conservation, helping to build and lead specialist units that disrupted poaching networks while mentoring the people tasked with stopping them. He believed wildlife protection depended not only on arrests and patrols, but on whether rangers had the welfare, training, and support to endure a job that was “always hard, sometimes deadly, and rarely noticed.”
Ochieng’ Ogodo, science journalist, mentor, and editor
A science journalist and mentor, he devoted his career to making complex ideas accessible and building institutions that supported African science writers. His greatest legacy lives on through the journalists he trained and championed across the continent.
Paul V. Loiselle, champion of cichlids
A champion of cichlid fishes, he helped bridge aquarium science, conservation, and evolutionary biology. His work showed how small, overlooked species could illuminate large ecological truths.
Radheshyam Bishnoi, protector of India’s wildlife, aged 28.
Born into Rajasthan’s Bishnoi community, he became a tireless protector of desert wildlife, particularly the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard. He was killed at 28 in a road accident while on patrol to prevent poaching, leaving behind a legacy rooted in local stewardship and relentless vigilance.
Randy Borman, the man who became Cofán
Raised among the Cofán, he devoted his life to securing Indigenous land rights and building one of the Amazon’s most effective ranger programs. Though oil pollution claimed his life, the forest he helped protect still stands.
Rémi Parmentier, environmental campaigner
A founding strategist at Greenpeace, he helped turn protest into policy, shaping treaties that banned dumping waste at sea. He believed systems mattered more than slogans, and targets more than promises.
Rex Mann, American chestnut evangelist
An evangelist for the American chestnut, he spent decades helping revive a tree once central to eastern forests. His faith was slow and botanical, measured in generations rather than years.
Robert Redford, filmmaker who fought for nature
An actor and filmmaker who became one of America’s most influential environmental advocates, he argued for decades that protecting land and water was a matter of national security. Through Sundance, NRDC, and the Redford Center, he treated storytelling as a tool for environmental action rather than ornament.
Roberto Zolho, conservationist who helped Mozambique’s wildlife rebound
A Mozambican conservationist, he played a central role in restoring Gorongosa National Park after civil war had wiped out more than 90% of its large mammals. His insistence on pairing wildlife recovery with community benefit helped make one of the world’s most remarkable ecological rebounds possible.
Saalumarada Thimmakka, mother of trees, aged 114
Born into poverty and denied children, she planted trees instead, nurturing more than 8,000 over her lifetime along roadsides in southern India. She died at about 114, leaving behind living corridors of banyans that transformed the land she loved.
Sebastião Salgado planted a forest and grew a global movement
Best known as a photographer, he and his wife transformed a degraded cattle ranch in Brazil into a thriving Atlantic Forest, planting millions of trees. The project grew into Instituto Terra, a global model for large-scale ecological restoration rooted in patience and persistence.
Sharon Haussmann, guardian of rhinos
As head of the Greater Kruger Environmental Protection Foundation, she became one of South Africa’s fiercest modern defenders of rhinos. She spent her final months in the field, coordinating anti-poaching patrols and overseeing the relocation of animals back into safer landscapes.
Sheila Colla, advocate for bees, aged 43
A biologist who helped sound the early alarm on pollinator collapse, she reshaped how scientists and the public understood wild bees. Her work bridged research and action, urging cities and governments to plant, plan, and live differently.
Shiloh Schulte, conservationist who helped the American Oystercatcher recover, died in a helicopter crash
A conservationist credited with helping the American oystercatcher recover, he combined field science with practical management along vulnerable coastlines. He was killed in a helicopter crash at 46 while working to protect the species he had devoted his life to.
Soundaram Ramaswamy, the Bull Lady of Kathasamipalayam
Known locally for caring for abandoned and aging bulls, she spent decades tending animals others no longer wanted. Her life unfolded far from institutions or recognition, defined instead by daily acts of responsibility.
Stuart Brooks, advocate for peatlands
A founder and long-time chair of the IUCN UK Peatland Programme, he helped move peatlands from a neglected habitat to a central pillar of climate and conservation policy. He believed peat did not need romance, only restraint, and spent decades building the strategies, institutions, and practical guidance that allowed damaged landscapes to recover quietly and at scale.
Sunjoy Monga, champion of urban birdwatching in India
A writer and educator, he helped bring birdwatching into India’s cities, arguing that nature was not elsewhere but embedded in daily urban life. Through walks, books, and quiet mentorship, he expanded who felt entitled to notice and care.
Tell Hicks, the naturalist who painted reptiles
A wildlife artist who helped bring reptiles into serious artistic and scientific view, he spent decades painting snakes, lizards, and turtles with unusual precision and restraint. Self-taught and widely traveled, he became a central figure in herpetological circles in Britain and the United States, using art to bridge field biology, conservation, and public understanding. Even after a life-altering accident, he returned to the easel, continuing a practice defined less by spectacle than by sustained attention.
Valmik Thapar, India’s tiger man
India’s most prominent tiger advocate, he spent decades pushing the country to take its flagship species seriously. Blunt, relentless, and often controversial, he helped make tiger conservation a national priority rather than a rhetorical one.
Vian Ruma, Indonesian activist, found dead. Aged 30.
A mathematics teacher and youth organizer on Flores, he became a quiet but determined voice opposing geothermal projects that threatened local communities. Found dead at 30 under disputed circumstances, his death intensified calls for transparency and protection of Indonesia’s environmental defenders.
Vicente Kaiowá, spokesman for the embattled Kaiowá
A spokesman for Brazil’s embattled Kaiowá people, he defended land rights amid violence and dispossession. His voice carried the insistence that survival itself can be an act of resistance.
Vimla Bahuguna spent a lifetime defending India’s forests and empowering women
A quiet force behind India’s environmental and women’s movements, she helped mobilize the Chipko tree-hugging protests and resist destructive development. She believed protecting forests and empowering women were inseparable tasks.
Vincent van der Merwe, champion of the cheetah
A pragmatic champion of cheetahs, he pioneered the managed translocation of animals to keep fragmented populations genetically viable. His work helped make South Africa the only country where wild cheetah numbers were rising.
William Bond, defender of grasslands
A leading ecologist of grasslands and savannas, he spent decades challenging the idea that trees are nature’s default solution. By insisting on evidence, scale, and context, he reshaped how scientists and policymakers think about fire, herbivores, carbon, and the value of open ecosystems.
Species and individual animals
In memory of the Christmas Island shrew
Weighing just a few grams, it survived for tens of thousands of years in the leaf litter of Christmas Island before disappearing almost unnoticed after the arrival of invasive rats and disease. Officially declared extinct, it endured decades longer than science realized, lingering as a reminder of how quietly small species vanish.
Vatsala, Asia’s oldest known elephant, died on July 8th, 2025, aged around 100
Believed to be Asia’s oldest known elephant, she lived for nearly a century, spending decades in India’s Panna Tiger Reserve as a steady presence to rangers and younger elephants alike. Blind and worn by time, she left behind no records or offspring, only memory—earning her reputation not as the oldest, but as the soul of the herd.
Kanzi the bonobo redefined what it means to be human
A bonobo who mastered symbols, understood spoken language, and challenged assumptions about human uniqueness, he showed that intelligence and culture are not ours alone. His quiet brilliance narrowed the line humans draw between themselves and other animals, without ever trying to cross it.
Goodbye to the Round Island hurricane palm—for now.
For decades, the last wild individual stood alone on a windswept island off Mauritius, the final remnant of a species undone by invasive animals and storms. Though it has now fallen, its lineage survives in carefully tended offspring nearby, offering a rare case where extinction in the wild may yet be reversed.
Form to submit the name of an environmental defender who died in 2025 and is not already on this list.
Updates: Joanna Macy was added on Dec 22.
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