Most Read Stories of 2023

In 2023, Mongabay published approximately 5,000 stories and more than 1,600 videos in English, Spanish, Indonesian, Portuguese, Hindi and French.

Posts on our website attract an average of 7.01 million unique visitors each month. This statistic does not include readership within social media platforms or readership of content on third-party websites that syndicate our stories.

This article covers the most popular stories published on news.mongabay.com, our global English-language news site. The most read stories about Mongabay-India in English will be shared separately on india.mongabay.com.

1. Freshwater behemoth a boon to Bolivian fishermen, but unknown to native species

The most popular story on news.mongabay.com in 2023 was an article about arapaima farming in Bolivia by Ivn Paredes Tamayo.

This story was originally published in Spanish on Mongabay-Latam and has been viewed nearly 500,000 times. Mongabay News version translated by Megan Morrissey.

Arapaima gigas, accidentally introduced to Bolivia from Peru in 1976, has transformed from a shunned alien species into a valuable economic asset for local fishermen. It currently accounts for 70% of some rural fishermen’s catch. But where it exists, native fish have disappeared, raising questions about its sustainability.

2. Top 15 species discovered in 2022 (pictures)

As usual, our annual review of newly described species is one of our most popular stories.

Liz Kimbrough’s article reviews 15 species first described by scientists in 2022.

3. Tigers and leopards venture into snow leopard habitat, sparking civil war in the Himalayas

The third most popular post on news.mongabay.com in 2023 was Abhaya Raj Joshi’s article on possible conflicts between Nepal’s three big cats, tigers, leopards and snow leopards due to rising temperatures.

Conventional wisdom holds that tigers thrive in the country’s southern plains, leopards in the central mountains, and snow leopards in the Himalayas. But both tigers and leopards have been observed at altitudes above 3,000 meters (9,800 feet), well within the territory of the snow leopard, although conservationists say tigers are unlikely to survive at these altitudes in the long term.

A complicating factor is the expansion of human settlements into higher altitudes, seeking more suitable conditions and putting the four top species, including humans, in direct competition.

4. South Africa: Little hope of a green transition in the world’s dirtiest town.

Anna Majavu’s report on the complex dynamics of South Africa’s green energy transition ranks fourth.

Most of South Africa’s coal production is concentrated in the northern province of Mpumalanga, where 12 of the country’s 15 coal-fired power plants are also concentrated.

Research from Carolina coal towns shows that women suffer from poor health and face sexual harassment and marginalization from formal industry jobs because of nearby mines.

Still, women surveyed for the report said they feared for their futures if the province’s coal industry was shut down as part of a transition to less polluting power generation.

5. The grumpiest cat leaves his calling card on the world’s tallest mountain

Mongabay’s Nepal-based staff writer Abhaya Raj Joshi ranked second in the top five most read articles about a study documenting the presence of Manuel cats (Pallass cats) on the slopes of Mount Everest.

6. Enviva, the world’s largest biomass energy company, is on the verge of bankruptcy

The November update from Justin Catanoso in his ongoing series on the forest biomass energy industry ranks No. 6 on our most popular list of 2023. Catanoso’s article documents the financial woes of Enviva, the world’s largest wood pellet producer, which has fallen on hard times after going bankrupt. Revealed it had misrepresented its green credentials.

7. The 10 most biodiverse countries

Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Butler’s 2016 analysis of biological richness across countries once again made the most popular list. As more are discovered, the ranking is regularly updated to include new species numbers.

8. Mexico busts illegal fishing cartel that hunts rare vaquita

Seal Environmental Journalism Award winner Maxwell Radwin’s article on the Mexican government’s announcement of the arrest of totoaba poachers in Mexico ranked eighth most read. Illegal totoaba fishing has caused a sharp decline in the population of the vaquita, an endangered species of small porpoise.

9. Scientists make rare new identification of snake family: Snakeidae

Y. Eva Tan Researcher Mactilda Mbenywe writes the ninth most popular story of 2023. Mbenywe reported on the decision to create a new family of snakes, Micrelapidae, found in East Africa and the Middle East.

10. Penis snake discovered in Brazil is actually a rare amphibian

Rounding out the top ten is Rhett Ayers Butler in 2012 about salamanderIt is an unusually large caecilian salamander that lives in the Amazon region. The animal was sighted when engineers were draining part of the Madeira River, a major Amazon tributary, at the San Antonio Dam near Porto Velho in the Brazilian state of Rondonia.