In response to the humanitarian and environmental impacts of the Indian Ocean Tsunami and in order to assist governments understand the environmental dimension of the disaster, UNEP established the Asian Tsunami Disaster Task Force, and mobilized nearly 30 environmental experts to the impacted countries to help the environmental authorities and the UN colleagues in each country to assess the environmental damage and catalyze environmental recovery. IUCN, WWF and the Joint UNEP-OCHA Environment Unit supported the task force to ensure the environmental response was well coordinated and that information on environmental impacts was efficiently shared between stakeholders.
