In 2008 Mongabay launched Tropical Conservation Science (TCS), an open-access academic journal that provides opportunities for scientists in developing countries to publish their research.
TCS was unique at the time of its launch by requiring authors to explain the conservation implications of their paper (something that has since been adopted by several major journals) and publishing general interest summaries of each paper in four languages. Additionally, most TCS papers are covered by Mongabay.com, disseminating their findings to a much broader audience.
As a result of these innovations, the average TCS paper is downloaded more than 500 times. And number of papers have gotten mainstream media attention.
TCS’s impact factor rose from 1.09 in 2013 to 1.33 in 2014. As of September 2015, TCS has published more than 300 papers.