Archbishop Paul Pitia Yugusuk of Central Equatoria Internal Province of the Episcopal Church (C) and Garang Maguet Garang (R) launching the planting of 10 million trees Campaign at St. Peter Parish, Shirkat on 17th April 2022. Credit: Charles Wote/Eye Radio

A youth-led organization, Greening South Sudan and the Episcopal Church have launched a campaign to plant 10 million fruit trees in the next ten years.

The campaign was launched yesterday by the Archbishop of Central Equatoria Internal Province, Paul Pitia Yugusuk at St. Peter Parish, Shirkat.

The event was marked with a symbolic planting of guava to represent the church’s commitment to plant more trees to conserve the environment.

Speaking to the media shortly after the launch, Garang Maguet Garang, the Executive Director of Greening South Sudan says trees help to conserve the environment.

“South Sudan is facing a lot of climate justice and food insecurity. So we are using one tool for two purposes, food security and climate justice,” Maguet said.

“As Greening South Sudan, we want to plant ten million within the ten years period after that we are going to see based on our budget because we cannot promise to plant one billion when we don’t have the finance.

“Our target now for ten years is to plant [and] if we finish before ten years, we can even add more and more if there is enough funding.”

For his part, the Archbishop of Central Equatoria Internal Province of the Episcopal Church Paul Pitia Yugusuk said people have been cutting trees for charcoal around Juba, saying this is harmful to nature.

“We have lost trees, we have been cutting trees every day and you can see charcoal coming all over to Juba,” Archbishop Yugusuk said.

“We have cut a lot of trees and so I think this is harmful to nature and so we have to protect nature.

“God has created us to protect nature for our good. It is part of our work that we must pray for nature and protect nature for the wellbeing of our people.

“We need rain, we need shade, we need trees so nature is very important and we are almost losing it.”

The campaign launched yesterday encourages schools, churches and mosques to plant trees that produce timbers and fruit trees.

So far, the organization has secured about 1,500 seedlings of different types of fruit trees.

The campaign was launched under the theme “pray and plant a tree for climate justice and food security.”