- Isabel Esterman is Mongabay’s managing editor for Southeast Asia, overseeing reporting across one of the world’s most complex environmental and political regions.
- Her work is defined by long-term coverage of critical issues, including Sumatran rhinos, carbon credit land deals in Malaysia, and the illegal ape trade in both Asia and Africa.
Esterman values collaboration across bureaus, particularly with Mongabay Indonesia, and sees supporting freelance journalists and building sustainable career paths as a meaningful part of her role. - This interview is part of Inside Mongabay, a series that spotlights the people who bring environmental and conservation stories to life across our newsroom.
For Isabel Esterman, impact in her journalism doesn’t come from a single ground-breaking story, but from several years of sustained reporting that gradually reshape global understanding. “What I think about is the topics we’ve really stayed on and broken ground on that have changed the way people think and talk about issues,” she says. “It’s not one story, but this collective body of reporting, and staying on it has been significant.”
This long-term approach has yielded tangible outcomes from many of Esterman’s projects, from scrutinizing carbon credit land deals in Malaysia to raising awareness about ritual use as a previously overlooked driver of ape trafficking in Africa. A major example is Mongabay’s reporting on the Sumatran rhino. When Esterman and her team began covering the species, official estimates suggested more than 100 remained. But Mongabay’s investigations indicated numbers closer to 30 in the wild. Thanks to this breadth of coverage, today’s official estimates now reflect this reality. ”Being able to have a more realistic figure to work with makes a big difference for conservation,” she says.
Since joining Mongabay in 2016, Esterman has become one of the organization’s longest-tenured staff, and now serves as managing editor for Southeast Asia. Her work involves navigating shrinking press freedoms and safety risks that shape what can be reported and how. When working with local journalists in Southeast Asia, risk assessment is essential to ensuring environmental stories are covered safely and responsibly. “That means responsibility to our reporters — almost all are based in the region and most are from there, with their families there — and also responsibility to the communities we report on,” she says.
These pressures shape both editorial decisions and how journalists work with sources. “Speaking out carries very high risks in nearly every country in Southeast Asia. It’s a constant balancing act. It’s rare that this isn’t a concern in a story,” Esterman says. “There’s a spectrum that runs from Laos and Myanmar to Thailand, but nowhere is retaliation against sources and reporters not something that we worry about.”
From her home in Salt Lake City in the U.S. state of Utah, Esterman prioritizes equity by empowering local journalism as a viable career path that enables new perspectives to reach international readers. “It’s valuable for global audiences to read stories about, say, the Philippines, written by Filipino reporters, not just foreigners,” she says.
What follows is a conversation with Esterman about her career at Mongabay and why long-term reporting — from Sumatran rhinos to carbon credit land deals — matters more than any single story. This interview is part of Inside Mongabay, a series that spotlights the people who bring environmental and conservation stories to life across our newsroom.
An interview with Isabel Esterman
Mongabay: When did you start working at Mongabay?
Isabel Esterman: I want to say 2016. I’m up there with some of the longest-tenured staff. I was hired at the same time as John Cannon. He had been doing freelance work and has been with Mongabay longer than I have. But in terms of full-time staff, there are a few people who have been around longer than I have, like Becky Kessler, Glenn Scherer, Morgan Erickson-Davis.
Mongabay: So you’ve been around since a time when Mongabay was fewer than 20 people or so.
Isabel Esterman: Yeah, probably around that number. Wow. It was pretty early on, and my role has changed a little bit over time, but yeah, it’s been a long tenure.
For Southeast Asia at the time — Philip Jacobson has been with Mongabay longer than I have — we didn’t have any staff writers. It was all freelance when I started. At the time, both Phil and I did more writing. It was a contributing editor role supported by freelancers. Now, it’s shifted to having staff, to a point where Phil still does investigative projects, but I’m almost entirely editorial. Every once in a while I’ll write something, and I think, “I’m gonna write more this year,” but my role remains almost fully editorial.
Mongabay: How does the region you work on shape the way you report on environmental issues?
Isabel Esterman: I wouldn’t know how to disentangle the two. The environment is literally the region. But across Southeast Asia, things are definitely taking a turn against press freedom and freedom of opinion. That massively shapes our coverage because it’s something we have to think about all the time.
Risk assessment is a huge part of what we do. It’s not just “Is this a good story?” but also “Can we cover this responsibly and safely?” That means responsibility to our reporters — almost all are based in the region and most are from there, with their families there — and also responsibility to the communities we report on.
People in communities affected by mining or deforestation usually want stories out in the hopes of sparking interventions, but speaking out carries very high risks in nearly every country in Southeast Asia. It’s a constant balancing act. It’s rare that this isn’t a concern in a story. There’s a spectrum that runs from Laos and Myanmar to Thailand, but nowhere is retaliation against sources and reporters not something that we worry about.
And then more broadly, the many landscapes, people and wildlife of Southeast Asia have unique, connected relationships that shape the stories we work on.
Mongabay: What’s one of your favorite stories that you’ve edited for Mongabay, and why?
Isabel Esterman: That’s a hard question to answer because my role is not so much about individual stories. I do some writing, but mostly small things that just need to get done quickly. So I tend to think more about areas of coverage that I feel we’ve done well with. For me, what’s significant isn’t “We did this one story and it was really cool.”
For example, our coverage of Sumatran rhinos, which consists of years of multimedia coverage, including multiple series, lots of short news articles, video, animated video. But the fact that this is an issue that we’ve stayed on top of, and in many ways been at the forefront of for years now, I feel is a significant part of my work. I couldn’t pick out an individual story, but I can say that I feel like we were a part of moving the needle on how the numbers of Sumatran rhinos were talked about.
The numbers that were coming out officially when we first started this were high. They were saying over 100, but our reporting, led by Jeremy Hance, suggested maybe there were only around 30 left in the wild. And now, the official estimates — although it’s bad news because it’s correct — are in line with the reporting that we were doing earlier. It opened the door for people to talk about how the official numbers were really inflated. Being able to have a more realistic figure to work with makes a big difference for conservation. That’s a case where it’s not one story, but this collective body of reporting, and staying on it has been significant, even though it’s hard to point out just one really important story.
The same thing applies to the big carbon credit land deal in Malaysia. That’s another example. The primary writer in this case was John Cannon, and I’ve been the editor on that topic since the beginning.
First of all, we had a long history of covering land issues and Indigenous rights issues in Malaysia. As a result, we were in a position to get wind that a big land deal might be in progress. So we broke that story because of our long history of working on these issues. And then we stayed on it for years, and that had a massive impact. That land deal still hasn’t happened, and if it does, it’s going to look very different than it would have if there had been no coverage.
And then, through the Apes Project, I also work on Africa. I lived in Africa for a long time, so I’ve continued to focus there. Our reporting on how the demand for ape body parts for ritual use shapes trafficking is significant. Until pretty recently, most of the literature on trafficking talked about meat and the pet trade, while demand for hands and heads for ritual use was seen as incidental.
Over the years, our coverage has really looked into how, in many cases, it’s actually the demand for body parts for ritual use that drives the hunting. That’s where the real money is, and the meat is kind of an incidental byproduct of the ape parts trade.
That increases understanding of why something is happening, which increases the chances for successful conservation interventions. If you think people are hunting gorillas for meat, the ways you try to provide alternatives look very different than if people are hunting them for ritual or traditional uses.
So that’s what I think about when I think about my work: the topics we’ve really stayed on and broken ground on that have changed the way people think and talk about issues.
Mongabay: Did you also contribute to Mongabay’s coverage of the Tapanuli orangutan?
Isabel Esterman: Yes, the Tapanuli orangutan is another case where we had a long time to prepare stories because of years and years — in this case, we’re talking even before I started at Mongabay — of connections with researchers in Indonesia and, to an extent, Malaysia.
Our Tapanuli orangutan coverage is substantially different from that of other publications. We covered the announcement of the new species and did deep dives into how it was determined. We had this space to do really in-depth coverage that a lot of other publications don’t.
But I think where we stood out was covering what was happening with the Indonesian government. Because this is an area with mining and a planned hydropower project, there’s been a lot of resistance from the government to conservation measures, which became more necessary after the identification of a unique species.
If you know there are 800 orangutans in an area, if you think they’re just Sumatran orangutans, it’s easier to justify building a dam in that habitat. Why? Because there are other Sumatran orangutan habitats and populations elsewhere. However, when it’s a distinct species that only lives in this one area, the conservation urgency becomes even higher.
We had also covered Indigenous land conflicts in the area before the new species was announced, so we already had that background of people who lived in the area who were concerned about and protesting against the hydropower dam.
Activists and scientists who spoke out about the impact of the hydropower project on ecosystems and communities in the area faced serious repression from the government. That side of the story — the human rights and community struggle — is something we’ve covered much more thoroughly and extensively than other publications.
It’s a kind of thing where we realize there’s a story about an ape, but then there’s this bigger story about what’s happening in the community with land rights, with government repression, that we were in a position to cover in a way that’s different from other outlets.
Mongabay: What does your work on Africa consist of?
Isabel Esterman: What I’ve done for Mongabay has almost entirely been the Apes Project. But before joining Mongabay I lived in Egypt and reported on North Africa. That doesn’t overlap much with Mongabay’s tropical forest coverage, but it’s where I was based for a long time. I’m now in the U.S., but it’s nice to keep some connection to Africa. It’s such a huge, diverse, fascinating continent.
Mongabay: Do you have a behind-the-scenes moment that stands out from working on these stories?
Isabel Esterman: Honestly, what stands out are the things you can’t publish, which is a lot.
Whether it’s the conservation implications, or you just know something to be true but can’t substantiate it to the degree that is necessary to be litigation-proof; the unpublishable stories come to mind. There’s always more. There is a lot that ends up on the digital cutting room floor.
Every story has more in the notes and drafts than what makes it to publication. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of needing to keep stories to a reasonable length, other times it’s due to concerns about conservation, safety or litigation. I always hope to go back to them, but there are a lot of threads that need a lot more work before they can be published.
Mongabay: What potential conservation implications might prevent publication?
Isabel Esterman: For example, information that reveals the location of endangered species is something we’re very careful with, whether it’s from local sources or research. This is also a serious concern in academic publishing, because poachers have been known to mine studies for details on high-value species in the wildlife trade. It’s a concern for researchers and likewise it’s a concern for us.
While getting information out is important, in some cases the cost of publication significantly outweighs the value. There’s a ton of stuff that doesn’t get published, and some of it is really interesting.
Mongabay: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Isabel Esterman: One thing that’s always been important to me — in both Southeast Asia and Africa — is working with freelancers and helping make environmental journalism a viable career path. Mongabay has been good at this, through training, fellowships, and by providing consistent work for freelancers and staff.
As an editor, I see part of my role as finding and supporting people who want to do environmental reporting in their own countries and communities, and making it something they can sustainably do. It’s valuable for global audiences to read stories about, say, the Philippines, written by Filipino reporters, not just foreigners. That’s still relatively rare in the media.
At the same time, Mongabay benefits from the contributions of reporters based in the West with subject expertise, but we’re able to have a balance, which is important.
Banner image: Esterman in Ciwidey, West Java, Indonesia, in 2010. Image courtesy of Isabel Esterman.
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