Perception of forest dwellers on threats to sustainable forest management in South Western Nigeria

Abstract

This study examined the perception of forest dwellers on the factors influencing forest sustainability in South Western Nigeria, such as logging, failure to plant, overgrazing, and bush burning among others. Also the perception about whether forest population that is, resources, actually increasing, decreasing or remain constant was also investigated among forest dweller households. Of the 450 household heads proposed for the study, 430 were valid and used for the research analysis (from Ogun (272), Ondo (89) and Osun (69) states were randomly selected). The descriptive statistics was employed to show degree in percentage of perception to forest threats in the study area. The average age of household was 47.6 ± 11.6 years and household size was 7.0± 4.0 persons. Majority of the household heads were male (92.1%), married (89.5%) with 2.4 ± 5.0 years of education and 19.9 ± 14.9 years of residency in the forest area. The empirical research showed that logging (48.60%) and failures to replace trees (48.14) with other threats (78.8%) such as urbanization, agriculture, fetching of fuel wood, charcoal production and poaching were serious threats affecting sustainable forest management. About 76.74% of the respondents were of the opinion that forest resources was increasing, about 57.21% of the respondents perceived and observed that forest resources were declining while 42.79% observed that forest resources are not declining while 70.7% were of the opinion that forest resources remain constant. It is therefore recommended that government should embark on programs that will sustainably conserve the forest and prevent indiscriminate exploitation of forest resources. The study recommends also that sustainable forest management practices should be enforced to keep forest and its resources for posterity.

Key words: Sustainable forest management, Forest population, Forest dwellers, Perception