wuestenschiff.de

Nach fünf Jahrzehnten Krieg ist der Südsudan unabhängig. Für Erlebnishungrige bietet ein deutscher Reiseveranstalter bereits Rundreisen durch den jüngsten Staat der Welt an.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Japanese government on Monday signed an agreement with South Sudan to mark the launch of a new initiative seeking to develop the young nation’s capacity to manage its borders. The two-year deal, valued at US$5.4m, is anticipated to boost South Sudan’s efforts to effectively control its border regions, through the construction of 16 border posts, an immigration training academy in the country’s capital, and the development of a national training curriculum on border management [...] Vincent Houver, IOM South Sudan Chief of Mission said the border management program will assist South Sudanese authorities to effectively handle the safe movement of persons and goods across borders [...] In 2011, the organization assisted South Sudan to install a passport registration and data collection system called ‘Personal Identification and Registration System’ (PIRS) at three land border posts, including one at Juba international airport. The system, immigration officials say, has helped to detect cases of fraudulent passports and forged visas, commonly witnessed at the airport and South Sudan borders [...] “The new IOM project will connect all 19 border posts to allow for automated exchange of data and information about travellers,”.

South Sudan has no forestry policy and its authorities are worried the world’s youngest nation could lose its natural forests, unless stringent measures are put in place to curb the rampant rates of illegal logging. Forest loss along the edge of Mount Dongotomea in South Sudan from Google Earth.These fears come barely a month after conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) warned of dangers the lie ahead as the country’s wildlife and natural resources face an alarming expansion of illegal exploitation, trafficking and logging. The report, the agency said, was based on scientific monitoring and investigations undertaken its team undertook in cooperation with local partners over the past months, which documented a sharp rise in illegal activities in various areas of the young nation [...] According to conservationists, prior to the outbreak of its war in December 2013, South Sudan’s extensive areas of untouched natural woodlands, forests, and savannas, were home to wildlife populations including approximately 2,500 elephant, hundreds of giraffes, the endemic Nile Lechwe and white-eared kob tiang, Mongalla antelope migrations, wild dog as well as chimpanzees [...] PRINS Engineering, in a 2011 study, discovered that the forests of the Imatong Mountains, rising to 10,456 feet (3,187 meters) in southern South Sudan were part of the Eastern Afro-montane ecosystem, rated by scientists as one of Africa’s biodiversity hot spots. These forests, it said, are homes to many endemic and possibly unique species, but scientists have yet to study the region’s species [...] “Illegal logging has occurred in and around Southern National Park and Lantoto National Park (involving Ugandans in complicity with local South Sudanese) and further illegal logging has been reported in forest reserves in the Yambio area,” it further notes [...] “The country is highly vulnerable to slipping into a situation in which various individuals and groups take advantage of the governance vacuum to engage in illegal and unsustainable activities plundering and destroying the natural resource base,” conservationists warned [...] The country’s Imatong forests, experts say, have been heavily degraded and deforested, and Mount Dongotomea is now bearing the brunt of clearing that threatens to fragment the ecosystem further. The mountain’s tree cover has reportedly been reduced by two-thirds since 1986, and, if deforestation in the area continues, the natural forests of will also disappear before the end of the decade.