Executive summary: "Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar on 2 and 3 May 2008, making landfall in Ayeyarwady Division, approximately 250 kilometres (km) southwest of Yangon. A category 3 cyclone, Nargis affected more than 50 townships, mainly in Yangon and Ayeyarwady Divisions, including Yangon, the country?s largest city. Strong winds and heavy rain caused the greatest damage in the Ayeyarwady Delta, where a storm surge compounded the impact of the cyclone. Nargis was the worst natural disaster in the history of Myanmar. More than 140,000 people were killed, mainly by the storm surge. Cyclone Nargis caused devastating damage to the environment of the Ayeyarwady and Yangon Divisions, an area where local livelihoods are heavily reliant on the natural resource base. Cyclone Nargis destroyed 38,000 hectares (ha) of natural and replanted mangroves, submerged over 63 percent of paddy fields and damaged 43 percent of freshwater ponds. The cyclone?s impacts were exacerbated by earlier damage to the environment, including deforestation and degradation of mangroves, over-exploitation of natural resources such as fisheries, and soil erosion. For example, the heavy loss of life as a result of the storm surge was primarily due to prior loss of about 75 percent of the original mangrove cover in the Delta, which could have served as a buffer against the storm surge. The deterioration of the natural resource base, in effect, reduced people?s resilience against the impacts of Nargis. The damage caused by the cyclone in the Ayeyarwady and Yangon Divisions poses a major challenge for recovery efforts that are striving to achieve sustainable development in the region. Experiences from Cyclone Nargis clearly demonstrate the vicious circle in which pre-existing environmental degradation increased vulnerability, turning a natural hazard into a major disaster. The disaster resulted in further environmental damage, jeopardizing the sustainability of livelihoods and ecosystem functions. The root cause of environmental degradation in the Ayeyarwady Delta is poverty. Unless remedial action is taken to restore livelihoods, the impacts of Cyclone Nargis will likely increase poverty as communities have little in reserve to cope with the disaster. One key lesson from Nargis is that developing more sustainable livelihoods can not be achieved by focusing solely on natural resource management interventions. Ensuring sustainability will require a coherent and integrated approach across a number of sectors, including livelihoods and food security; shelter; education and training; water, sanitation and hygiene; disaster risk reduction (DRR); and protection of vulnerable groups. At the same time, these sectoral approaches will need to be augmented by capacity-building and institutional strengthening for national and local governments as well as civil society, an enabling framework at the national level to provide laws and policies that support sustainable development, and a reliable information base on the environment."