Study - Local Heat Spikes Driven By Deforestation Have Killed +/- 500,000 People Over 20 Years

Deforestation has killed more than half a million people in the tropics over the past two decades as a result of heat-related illness, a study has found. Land clearance is raising the temperature in the rainforests of the Amazon, Congo and south-east Asia because it reduces shade, diminishes rainfall and increases the risk of fire, the authors of the paper found.

Deforestation is responsible for more than a third of the warming experienced by people living in the affected regions, which is on top of the effect of global climate disruption. About 345 million people across the tropics suffered from this localised, deforestation-caused warming between 2001 and 2020. For 2.6 million of them, the additional heating added 3C to their heat exposure.

In many cases, this was deadly. The researchers estimated that warming due to deforestation accounted for 28,330 annual deaths over that 20-year period. More than half were in south-east Asia, owing to the larger populations in areas with heat vulnerability. About a third were in tropical Africa, and the remainder in Central and South America.

The study was published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Climate Change. Researchers in Brazil, Ghana and the UK compared non-accident mortality rates and temperatures in areas affected by tropical land clearance.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/27/deforestation-has-killed-half-a-million-people-in-past-20-years-study-finds