South Sudan seeks to plant 20 mln trees

South Sudan has set an ambitious target of planting 20 million trees in ten years in a bid to mitigate negative impacts of climate change, a senior official said Wednesday.

Joseph Africano Bartel, undersecretary in the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, said deforestation in the country has reached alarming levels due to charcoal burning and illegal timber trade.

He said under the new guidelines, regional provinces would be asked to plant 2 million trees each and residents in urban required to plant five trees in their residential plots.

"In our environment management plan, we are going to plant 20 million trees in ten years and each of the ten former states are going to plant 2 million different species of trees," Bartel said.

Bartel added that South Sudan is seeking to enact laws to crack down on illegal timber trade, charcoal export and ban importation of plastic bags to protect the environment.

He revealed that rainfall and temperature forecasts for South Sudan in the next three months predicted less rainfall in the southwestern parts of the country, signaling a negative climate change pattern that would affect food production in the country.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) warned last year that South Sudan's forests, currently covering 33 percent of its total land area, shrink by 1.5 percent annually due to logging and deforestation as the country lacks alternative source of fuels.

The agency said forests depletion was being fueled by armed conflict, poverty and increased demand for agricultural land.

South Sudan last month launched 28 projects under the UN-led National Adaptation Program of Action (NAPAs), making the East African country eligible to acquire funding of nearly 200 million U.S. dollars for implementation of programs seeking to address climate change after it pledged to implement some provisions of the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference (COP21). Endit