Climate catastrophes are stacking up like tree trunks illegally clear-cut from a rainforest. Where once it was a relatively rare occasion to hear a newscaster, weather-person, or public figure utter the words “climate disaster,” these days, it is becoming almost mainstream.

Science made the connection years ago: clear-cutting and the slash-and-burn practices used for agriculture, mining, and ranching that are decimating our world’s rainforests are directly tied to climate change and the growing upheaval in weather patterns. Learn more about the top three climate disasters affecting our planet today.

Prolonged, severe droughts

Exceptional periods of water shortage (6 months or more) are considered severe droughts. Southern Africa is experiencing an unusually long drought, devastating wildlife and people. Early this year, parts of the region received half or less of their typical rainfall in a drought that began in October 2023. Large mammals are particularly susceptible to the effects of drought when their food and water sources dry up, habitat shrinks, and human-wildlife conflicts increase. Giving wildlife room to roam, especially when under duress, is a key strategy behind Rainforest Trust’s projects to safeguard species in Africa and elsewhere.

Wildfires in a wetland?

Rising temperatures and those more frequent, longer-lasting droughts set the stage for human-caused fires to spread across rainforest habitat that, under normal circumstances, would not burn in the same devastating way. This year’s unprecedented wildfires that burned over 3 million acres of Brazil’s Pantanal—the world’s largest wetland—are a sobering example. Animals who have never experienced a fire or prolonged drought because they live in a historically moist rainforest have not evolved to cope with it. Jaguars and tapirs with burned paws (and worse), macaw and stork nests burned to ashes—these are only a few examples from the tragedy.

Tropical cyclones

Tropical depressions, storms, typhoons and hurricanes—these are all forms of tropical cyclones, graduating from weak to strong, that are becoming more common and severe with climate change. Natural ecosystems like mangroves, salt marshes, coral reefs and seagrass beds act as barriers and reduce the impact of rising seas and storm surges that are increasingly destroying coastal areas. Our projects in coastal and marine areas “protect the protectors” of our coasts, and do much to mitigate climate change by keeping carbon stored in these super-sequester ecosystems.

Climate disasters will continue to worsen as the planet warms.

Rainforest Trust is continually working to protect large areas of natural habitat as safe havens for wildlife when disaster strikes. Keeping forests standing, locking carbon up in rainforests, protecting coastal environments—all of these actions bring resilience to nature and to us all.

Rainforest Trust works with partners and communities across the tropics and subtropics to save rainforest habitat, species, and the livelihoods of local people, with 54 million acres protected to date, and 62 million acres more in the process of protection.

Locking up carbon is key to addressing climate disruption, and our projects store 16 billion metric tons of carbon equivalents—an amount comparable to the emissions from 4 billion gas-powered vehicles driving for a year.

As a founding supporter of the 30×30 effort to save 30% of Earth’s lands and waters by 2030, we are fully committed to giving nature the best possible chance at survival where “wildly unpredictable” is the new normal.