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Humanitarian Partnerships

Mother and child living in an internally displaced person's camp in Sri Lanka.
© WWF-Canon/Yoshi Shimizu

The Indian Ocean Tsunami:
Five Years Later
Five years have passed since the Indian Ocean tsunami swept over countries in Asia and East Africa taking the lives of 230,000 people and destroying the livelihoods and environments upon which millions depend. Thanks to survivors, international and local communities, NGOs, and governments, great strides in recovery and reconstruction have been made since this devastating event, however there is still work to be done. WWF’s Humanitarian Partnerships program asks you to take this day to remember those we lost, to think of those that remain in the affected regions and to look to a future where a healthy environment can play a necessary role in disaster risk reduction, mitigation, and recovery.

WWF is working directly with humanitarian organizations and governments to advise them on better practices for rebuilding communities impacted by disaster. The goal of our Humanitarian Partnerships Program is to ensure that recovery and reconstruction efforts include environmentally sustainable considerations. To reduce risk and vulnerability and achieve long-lasting results for affected communities, the recovery and reconstruction process must be comprehensive and include a 'design through implementation' approach to ensure restoration of livelihoods, protection of natural resources, and strengthening of communities against future disasters.

The Humanitarian Partnerships Program was borne out of collaboration with the American Red Cross to ensure sustainable reconstruction in countries ravaged by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami including Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, the Maldives and Indonesia.  Since then, the program has worked on the Philippines oil spill in 2006, Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh in 2008, Cyclone Jokwe in Mozambique in 2008, and the Sichuan Province earthquake in China in May 2008.

 

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More On Humanitarian Partnerships

News & Updates

  • WWF-American Red Cross article Environmental Stewardship and the Humanitarian Aid Water and Sanitation Sector: Lessons from the 2004 Tsunami Disaster Response to appear online in Water Practice and Technology February 2009
  • Anita van Breda discusses relationship between disasters and environment at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies January 2009
  • Anita van Breda on Animal Planet’s Top Animal Stories of 2008 to discuss Wolong pandas and green earthquake reconstruction December 2008
  • WWF publishes Global Disaster Outlook: A Conservation Perspective October 2008

 

WWF Experts

Anita van Breda

Director, Humanitarian Partnerships

"By working together we can rebuild communities and the environment upon which they depend, to be stronger, more sustainable, and more resilient to future disasters."

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Multimedia

The Environment: Disasters, Crisis and Conflict
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Community Forum Slideshow

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