In a recent paper in the International Journal of Remote Sensing, Olwig et al. [28 (2007) 3153?3169] present a comprehensive, geographic information system (GIS)?based description of the spatial distribution of damage from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami relative to coastal vegetation in Tamil Nadu, India, and conclude that ??mangrove forests and coastal shelterbelts provided protection from the [t]sunami.? In this comment, we demonstrate that the complex spatial pattern of damage makes their observational approach unable to substantiate this claim.