Environmentalist Norman Myers

Norman Myers, one of the world’s foremost environmentalists, has died aged 85.

He was the first scientist to calculate the impact of US cattle ranching – finding that every year, worldwide, an area of the tropical rainforest the size of England and Wales was burned, bulldozed or felled to make hamburgers for the United States.

Much of his work addressed the decline in tropical rainforests and, although his revelations were disputed at the time, they were later verified through satellite imagery.

He predicted that climate change, natural disaster, erosion and other human change would result in a surge of environmental refugees and in 1997 he published a book warning that there may be 50 million environmental refugees by 2010.

Born on August 24 1934, he lived in Kenya for 30 years, returning to the UK in the 1980s and settling in Oxford.

He married Dorothy Halliman in 1965 but the pair separated in 1993, divorcing in 2012.

During his professional career, Mr Myers was an adviser to the United Nations, the World Bank, several scientific academies and various government administrations.

He wrote 18 books and more than 250 scientific papers.

In 2007 he was named Times Magazine Hero of the Environment and his early work on biodiversity was cited.

Tropical forest account ForestPlots tweeted: “Norman Myers, a truly original scientist has passed on.

“He did more than anyone to put tropical forests on the map.

“Myers saw how their fate is ours, told the world why they’re burning – and worked out what to do.”

Ecologist Jon Lovett also paid tribute. He said: “Farewell to Norman Myers, a good friend who helped me a great deal in my early career.

“He was a courageous scientist who spoke out about tropical forest destruction and forged new ways of looking at how humans interacted with the natural world.”

Mr Myers is survived by his daughters Malindi and Mara and his grandchildren Juliette and Alexander.

Picture: Getty. Norman Myers.