By William Madouk Garang
The National Minister of Environment and Forestry, Josephine Napwon Cosmas has suspended the International Environment Day commemoration set for 30th June 2022 to Monday next week following the demise of their colleague Minister of Water Resources, Peter Manawa.
The postponement came in line with an earlier announcement made by President Salva Kiir stating that there will be official mourning period for 3 days with flags to fly at half-mast.
During a press conference in her office yesterday, Minister Napwon pushed the D-Day which was to be celebrated today to next week on 4th July, 2022 to allow proper mourning of the fallen Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Manawa Peter.
“We are supposed to commemorate World Environment Day tomorrow [today] in Freedom Hall at around 10:00am but due to last funeral prayers of my colleague the late minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Peter Manawa Gatkuoth. So, we could not celebrate the Day tomorrow,” minister Napwon told journalists on Wednesday.
“Of course we cannot do celebration meanwhile there is a funeral prayers going on. We have decided that we push the celebration to Monday next week on the 4th July, 2022,” Napwon told reporters.
World Environment Day is the largest global platform for environmental public outreach and is celebrated by millions of people across the globe. The Day is celebrated annually on 5 June.
The first United Nations conference on Human Environment was held in Stockholm in 1972 under the slogan “Only One earth”.
The national ministry of Environment and Forestry normally commemorates the World Environment Day with massive cleaning campaigns, planting of trees and other environmental awareness.
The National Ministry of Environment and Forestry had been appealing to the general public to take environmental action and embrace nature-friendly habits.
In last year’s commemoration under national theme “Save Environment Save Lives” Minister Napwon said conserving the environment was the only way to health living and existence of life on planet earth.
“Our country is experiencing massive de-forestation, plastic pollution in our towns, streams, and rivers, unsustainable solid and liquid in the oil-producing areas,” Minister Napwon was quoted in media reports last year.
According to state of environment and outlook report on South Sudan 2018, enormous was mounted on natural resource especially forests as over 99 percent of population in the country depend on forests as source of energy – fuel, wood and Charcoal.