By Kei Emmanuel Duku
Boma-Badingilo Landscape, the largest mammal migratory landscape in the country and Africa, is to inscribe on the World Heritage List.
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Country Representative, Julius Banda, announced the plan on Tuesday during preparation of Boma-Badingilo nomination dossier.
The UNESCO country Representative explained that, while South Sudan is a member of the 1972 UNESCO World Heritage Convention, the country currently has no sites inscribed on the list.
Boma-Badingilo-Jonglei Landscape, the Sudd Wetland Area, and the Zebia slave trade route are currently on a tentative list, all possessing significant potential for global recognition.
According to Banda, Boma-Badingilo Landscape possesses the attributes required by the World Heritage Convention, and UNESCO is collaborating with various stakeholders to secure its admission as a World Heritage site.
Criteria for consideration include demonstrating Outstanding Universal Values, such as natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance (like the sheer scale of the antelope migration); significant ongoing ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, freshwater, coastal, and marine ecosystems and communities of plants; and the conservation of biological diversity, including threatened species like the Rothschild’s giraffe, which the landscape supports.
“Boma-Badingilo Landscape is a unique area with outstanding sites, and this heritage is found nowhere else on earth,” Banda affirmed.
He noted that many of South Sudan’s historical sites remain globally unknown due to their absence from the World Heritage List, and consequently, the country’s diverse wildlife is also not widely recognized.
Banda emphasized that global recognition of the Boma-Badingilo Landscape offers numerous benefits, including increased global attention through tourism and reduced over-reliance on the oil sector as a revenue source.
“This country needs other ways of getting resources other than oil. Once recognized, this site creates more employment for young people and the development of infrastructure. So, the potential benefit of having a site on the World Heritage list is enormous. That’s why the competition for nations to put their sites on the world heritage list is very stiff,” he added.
However, Banda acknowledged that despite recent efforts and those of development partners in conserving and protecting wildlife in the Boma-Badingilo Landscape and Sudd Wetlands Area, these species are on the verge of extinction due to uncontrolled poaching, primarily for commercial purposes.
He added that the Sudd Wetlands and Boma-Badingilo Landscape are also experiencing biodiversity loss due to flooding resulting from climate change.
The UNESCO Country Representative urged the government and local communities to prioritize the conservation of existing natural resources and avoid interfering with ecosystems by constructing roads through protected areas and wetlands without conducting an environmental impact assessment of the area.
Recent surveys published by the African Parks on South Sudan Wildlife Population Census revealed that the Boma-Badingilo landscape is home to an estimated six million antelope, making it the largest land mammal migration on Earth, surpassing the renowned wildebeest migration in Serengeti, Tanzania.