Mongabay launches in Hindi, India’s most widely-spoken language

Mongabay, a non-profit conservation and environmental science news service with a monthly audience of over 10 million people, is excited to announce its expansion into Hindi, India’s most widely spoken language. Mongabay-Hindi will give Mongabay-India (which until now has published only in English) the ability to reach larger audiences and grow its network of journalists in India, heightening awareness of environmental issues in a country that ranks among the world’s most biologically and culturally diverse.

“If we’re looking to maximize the impact of environmental journalism, Hindi is critical,” said Mongabay Founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler. “Spoken by over 600 million people, the language plays an important role in setting the national discourse.”

“India is home to 17 percent of the world’s population. As such, it will play a key role in addressing some of the planet’s greatest ecological challenges, from climate change to food security to the extinction crisis,” he added.

Mongabay-India was formally launched in 2018, becoming the fourth Mongabay bureau after Global, Indonesia, and Latam (Spanish). After nearly three years of operation, Mongabay-India has published more than 1,400 stories and has had more than 20 million page views.

Today the bureau is staffed by a diverse array of professionals from across India and has a large network of contributors from different corners of the country. Establishing Mongabay-Hindi will enable the platform to engage a significantly larger number of journalists across India, improving its geographic coverage and depth of reporting, while appealing to a far greater share of readers in India.

“Mongabay-Hindi’s conservation and environment stories will help connect readers from cities, towns and villages in the Hindi-speaking parts of the country with the latest in biodiversity and climate change research and policy action,” said S. Gopikrishna Warrier, managing editor of Mongabay-India. “Our field-based reporting will cover environmental issues from the grassroots to researchers and policy makers. Our solutions stories, on the other hand, will help communities find answers to their environmental concerns.”

“Journalism in Hindi has the ability to reach those parts of the population that are not effectively reached by English journalism,” he said.

Mongabay-India aspires to eventually produce content in more Indian languages to inform and inspire vastly more people.

“Mongabay has already made inroads into its Indian audience by producing high-quality content on its English site,” said Sandhya Sekar, program manager at Mongabay-India. “However, to reach communities who would most benefit from good journalism that can translate into on-ground impact, local language journalism is the next big step.”

Mongabay-Hindi is now available at hindi.mongabay.com and on social media at:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mongabayhindi
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mongabayhindi
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mongabayhindi/
Telegram: https://t.me/mongabayhindi
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mongabayhindi
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-DlkTpgKYhewu5LxSp9AVw/videos