December 1, 2019 (JUBA) – South Sudan is experiencing the devastating effects of heavy floods in most parts of the country due to climate change, Miss Earth South Sudan said.

Miss Earth South Sudan Asara Bullen Panchol (Earth Tv)

Addressing reporters in Juba last week, Asara Bullen Panchol Sarah decried the high deforestation rate in the young nation.

“If we had many trees, maybe these things would not be happening. This is the effect of climate change,” she said.

According to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), nearly a million people have been affected by heavy rainfall and subsequent flooding.

Late last month, the South Sudanese President Salva Kiir declared a state of emergency in the flood-affected areas.

Panchol appealed to the population to plant more trees all over the country.

Meanwhile, Miss Earth South Sudan has vowed to spearhead a campaign aimed at promoting the use of fuel efficiency stoves among citizens to reduce cutting of trees.

South Sudan currently has no forestry policy and its authorities are worried they could lose the country’s tropical forests, unless stringent measures are put in place to curb rampant rates of illegal logging.

In February, an investigative report from Africa Uncensored exposed how the lumbering of teak wood in South Sudan is evidence that the country’s long civil war has turned into a fight for natural resources.

(ST)