"How Individual Citizens Can Protect South Sudan’s Environment From Mining and Oil Disasters"

Our planet has been undergoing several challenges in the last Century, when it comes to its environment...South Sudan has not been spared. With the country not having known peace for the last 7years, the environment has been neglected and degraded to the extreme...Human activities such as mining oil haphazardly have led to underground water pollution thus the population there contracting diseases as a result...

One of the environmental challenges facing South Sudan has been the oil industry that has done its operations in ways that have degraded the environment. It is upon this background that the government needs to be carrying out Environment and Social Assessments in all areas of oil drilling through a commission. The Environment and Social Impact Assessment Study commission to determine whether it would be environmentally, socially, technically and economically feasible to develop the oil deposits in the concession area and to construct drill pads, access roads, accommodation camps.

The oil will initially be for local consumption and later for export to international markets. The commission needs to have public participation in its assessments, and it can achieve this through youth initiatives. The youth can be used to mobilize the community to attend public participation meetings of these environmental assessments, they can also relay the community’s opinions to the commissioners and follow up to ensure that the public’s concerns were captured in the report.