Climate change perception, awareness and adaptation decision among forest communities in Nigeria

Abstract

In recent time the perception of climate change is beginning to gain recognition in policy circles, due to the need to understand how individuals’ experiences and attributes influence their understanding of climate change and their adaptation  processes.This is important to development well-targeted policies and interventions among the forest poor. The perception of climate change and adaptation decision of forest communities in Nigeria were analyzed using the logit model. Results show that over88% of the respondents have perceived climate change in one form or the other in all the ecological regions except in the montane forest where only 33% has.Over 84 % are aware of changes in forest resource use over time except in the montane forest where only 24% did. Ability to notice climate change was positively associated with spring rainfall, but negatively associated with education, net income, summer and fall precipitation. Decision to take up innovation was positively associated with access to electricity, number of years of forest use, winter rainfall and temperature, and negatively associated with summer rainfall. Spring rainfall has a 2.4% likelihood of positively influencing the chance of noticing climate change, while it is negative with summer and fall rainfall; 0.4 and 1.7% respectively.Access to electricity, number of years of forest use and winter rainfall likely increase innovation adoption by 18.6, 0.5 and 1.5% respectively, while summer precipitation reduces the likelihood of adoption by 0.4%.It is therefore important for stakeholders to synchronizethese
information in order to help build the adaptive capacity of forest communities not only in Nigeria but across the developing world.

Keywords: Adaptive capacity, Adoption, Forest resources, Innovation, Policy.