Wetland Farmers and Conflict Indices in Oyo State Fadama II Project

Abstract

Fadama land is otherwise called wetland. The land is characterized by the presence of water in the most parts of the year. One hundred and fifty wetland farmers were randomly selected for study between September 2004 and October 2005. The selection was done in such a way that all local government areas were represented. The study basically was on identifiable indices of conflicts and frequency of occurrence within and between groups. The causes of conflict were observed in the following decreasing order of occurrence; Trespassing, nomadic activities, land tenure, lack of adequate knowledge about the use of wetlands (LAK), inheritance. It was also noted
that WITHIN group conflicts were far less in occurrence compared to BETWEEN group conflicts. It was also discovered that environmental conflict is highly indicative of social conflicts.