Intl. J. of Mol. Evol. and Biodivers. 2013, Vol. 3, No.2, 5-10
http://ijmeb.sophiapublisher.com
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traditionally valued as a source of timber, pulp and
fuel. Other products classified as minor forest
products are often products of industrial importance.
The minor products include gums, resins and tannins.
For rural inhabitants in forest regions, the forests are
valued for a wide array of products.
Wildlife resources on the other hand also consist of
wide diversity of fauna genetic resources which offer
a broad array of goods especially protein where there
is deficiency.
For avoidance of doubts, major forest environment
include:
(
a) Tropical Rainforest: Tropical forest is rich in
flora and fauna species with the plants and animals
having no resistance to drought or cold. It occurs to a
lesser extent in Africa.
(
b) Tropical Savanna: Dominated by grasses but
dotted with trees or with patches or open forest. Some
savannas are arid with scattered thorny trees; others
have almost complete tree cover.
(
c) Deserts: Deserts occupy climate too dry for
grassland. The vegetation consists of widely scattered
thorny bushes and perhaps a few succulents such as
Cacti of Euphobias and after rains small ephemeral
annual plants.
The above are the ecosystems of forest resources and
they are the terrestrial type.
Wildlife environment have been taken care of in forest
resources because of the location of animal habitat and
ecosystem within the forest. However, it suffices to
mention major ecosystems within the wildlife
resources. These are
(
a)Arboreal ecosysytem
(
b)Wetland ecosystem
(
c)Unprotected Natural Areas
Man stand to gain a lot from conservation practices by
preventing wildfire from seriously affecting forest and
wildlife resources (Shotuyo, 2011). The primitive man,
at least when his numbers were small, lived on the
ecosystem without essentially destroying it. In order
to produce more food and practise better agriculture,
man started using fire as a tool for land clearing and
preparation. This triggers factors into natural
ecosystems and the beginning of purposefully
modified systems (Bilings, 1978). These modified
ecosystems are further threatened by over-exploitation
resulting in unsustainable use for subsistence leading
to impoverishment of forest and wildlife biodiversity
or through development activities such as urbanization
and modernization leading to sudden and often
irreversible loss of biodiversity (Figure 1).
Figure1 Map of Ogun state showing local governments
At present, about 70% of Nigeria’s tree populations
are lost annually to forest fire (FAO, 1983,
http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/bodies/CFS
_
sessions/39th_Session/39emerg/MF027_CFS_39_FI
NAL_REPORT_compiled_E.pdf). Forest crops valued
at N19 million were destroyed by bush fire in Nigeria
in 1983. Thus, forest resources are in decline because
of over-exploitation. Several tree species over
thousands of hectares including both matured, young
and seedlings are destroyed at an alarming rate. As the
forest is destroyed, the wildlife resources are not
spared. In recent times, use of fire on wildlife
resources resulted in a tremendous channelling of food
energy into human populations especially the much
required protein which is fairly expensive within the
country. Pollock (1969) studied the records of
European settlers and hunters in Africa in the 19th
century and noted that during this period, wildlife was
still abundant over most part of Africa. However, due
to indiscriminate and unregulated hunting of wild
fauna for food and trophies, wild animals have
declined at an alarming rate in Africa during the 20th