Transcript IUCN and the Indian Ocean Tsunami 2004

Natural Disasters
Indian Ocean Tsunami
26 December 2004
IUCN Released on 4 February 2005 Practical
Decision-Makers Guide to Help Rehabilitation
of Natural Environments and Livelihoods
following the Tsunami
The idea is to help policy makers and project
managers design and manage post-tsunami
reconstruction, taking into account ecosystem
rehabilitation that restores the livelihoods of
survivors.
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Four areas of UNEP of rehabilitation work
caused by the Tsunami
• Operating a clearing house of information linking
field workers, international experts, policy makers,
resource allocation managers, and disaster recovery
experts
• Providing practical guides in key areas for policy
makers and field workers
• Enhancing technical capacity in affected countries
• Globally coordinating assessments and long-term
monitoring from corporate and NGO sectors, working
in conjunction with the UN agencies.
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Bill Jackson, Director of the IUCN Global
Programme statements:
“Houses, schools, hospitals and hotels have all been
damaged, along with fishing grounds, forests,
beaches and other natural environments..”
“All of these support the livelihoods of people in the
affected areas, so the buildings and the ecosystems
need to be restored at the same time for people to
regain their daily income and standard of living”.
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The Guide is giving advice on various aspects:
• indicates why ecosystems need to be restored
alongside infrastructure rebuilding,
• how to plan the recovery process, involving
stakeholders, and establishing priorities.
• How to arrange reforestation, protect against invasive
species,
• How to deal with different coastal ecosystem types,
different livelihood types,
• How to arrange post-restoration monitoring.
• Gives necessary reference to experts
IUCN is producing two more practical restoration Guides
for decision-makers: on sustainable tourism and on
sustainable fisheries, affected by the tsunami.
www.iucn.org/tsunami/docs/tsunami-guidance-info.pdf
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The Decision Makers Guide is available
from IUCN’s Tsunami website+
www.iucn.org/tsunami/.
For downloading the Guide see also:
www.iucn.org/tsunami/docs/tsunami-guidance-info.pdf
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Material presented below is taken from IUCN document
Recovery from the Indian Ocean Tsunami - Guidance
for Ecosystem Rehabilitation incorporating
livelihoods concerns
„The 26 December 2004 tsunami caused the deaths of
large numbers of people and was responsible for damage
to livelihoods and ecosystems across large areas of
coastal regions in south and south-east Asia and eastern
Africa.
The event affected coastal ecosystems and, as a result,
will severely affect both immediately and in the long-term,
the livelihoods of people living in these areas. A great deal
of evidence (from literature on previous natural disasters)
demonstrates that the poor are particularly vulnerable to
natural disasters such as severe storms, floods,
landslides, fires and earthquakes because they often live
in unsafe locations.”
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„It is also important to remember that the poor have
less reserves to enable any quick recovery and that
some legal and institutional arrangements with respect
to property rights may even act as serious constraints
to regaining some measure of livelihood security.
The initial response of the local and international
communities in the aftermath has been to deal with
urgent humanitarian concerns - ensuring adequate
shelter, food, water supplies, health and security of the
survivors.
The next stage will be to re-establish the communities
and help them to rebuild and develop sustainable
livelihoods. Many of these communities relied heavily
on natural resources (marine and terrestrial).
The sustainability of livelihoods in such cases can be
enhanced by the rehabilitation of these resources and
ecosystems.
Attention to restoring the ecosystems that provide the
life support systems for these people will benefit both
communities and biodiversity for the future”.
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Invasive species and ecosystem rehabilitation
Tsunami event created a situation giving a possibility for invasions of
alien species because ecosystem boundaries collapsed, seawater
and freshwater mix and areas become “degraded”.
Example 1: water hyacinth which formerly was kept isolated in
hsabitwts near coasts by seawater now can easily be swept back
into previously uninfested freshwaters or slightly saline areas and
remain alive to infest new areas.
Rehabilitation of such freshwater ecosystems is needed to eliminate
such invasive species and a proper monitoring should be organised
Example 2: Submerged (wild and genetically modified) finfish,
crustaceans (shrimps, crabs) or molluscs (oysters, scallops) can
move to new habitats via the sea during tsunami events often from
caged cultures from estuaries or the open sea
Example 3: alien species in ponds (cichlid fish, tilapias) could be
washed inland and then out to sea again releasing potentially
invasive species (and their diseases) distant from their origin.
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IUCN gave early observations of tsunami effects on
wetlands and water resources for Sri Lanca,
Indonesia, India, Thailand, Malaysia and Somalia
Example: Sri Lanca - in the Southern part the coastal
rice fields and adjoining salty marshes - partially
covered with marine silt containing sulphurous
substances, resulting in the destruction of vegetation in
these wetlands.
Effects on healthy mangroves differ in the region, they
seem to have been less affected than disturbed or
degraded mangrove areas. They even reduced the
impacts of the tsunami and protected their lives or
property. Some coastal lagoons and estuaries were
filled with marine sludge and silt. Mass mortality of fish
near-shore, lagoon and estuarial was observed. Thus
the basis for the fishermen is reduced
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