Author Braatz, S., Fortuna, S., Broadhead, J., Leslie, R. & Forestry Group

Year of publication 2007

Following the widespread wreckage and loss of life caused by the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004, unprecedented efforts where made to restore order and rebuild the lives and livelihoods of the millions affected. A proportion of the reconstruction and rehabilitation effort was focused on environmental rehabilitation and a part of this again on the rehabilitation of coastal trees and forests. Many programmes were implemented during the post-tsunami period to restore coastal trees and for ests, and in particular mangrove forests. Early information suggested that extensive areas of forest had been destroyed by the tsunami. It later became clear that the area of forest destroyed by the tsunami was small in relation to that removed by human activity over past decades. Other information from a range of sources strongly suggested that coastal forests had afforded some degree of protection from the devastation caused by the tsunami.