Intl. J. of Mol. Ecol. and Conserv. 2012, Vol. 2, No. 5, 26-31
http://ijmec.sophiapublisher.com
26
Research Report Open Access
Multiple Land Use Benefits of Peri-urban Forest (Arakanga Forest Reserve,
Ogun State, Nigeria): Perception of Resource Users and its Implication
J.A. Soaga , O. O. Oduntan , A.L.A. Shotuyo
Department of Forestry and Wildlife Management, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria
Corresponding author email:
oladapo.oduntan@yahoo.com
Authors
International Journal of Molecular Ecology and Conservation, 2012, Vol.2, No.5 doi: 10.5376/ijmec.2012.02.0005
Received: 26 Oct., 2012
Accepted: 31 Oct., 2012
Published: 30 Nov., 2012
© 2012 Soaga et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Soaga et al., 2012, Multiple Land Use Benefits of Peri-urban Forest (Arakanga Forest Reserve, Ogun State, Nigeria): Perception of Resource Users and its
Implication, International Journal of Molecular Ecology and Conservation, Vol.2, No.5, 26-31
(
doi: 10.5376/ijmec.2012.02.0005)
Abstract
The study examined multiple land use benefits in a peri-urban forest in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria and the perception
of resource users on the significance of the benefits. Stratified Random Sampling technique was used for the study with 100
respondents selected. The settlement was divided into four strata based on existing pattern in the area. The four strata are Ajegule,
Ibode Olude, Ilugun Titun and Mawuko. From each stratum, twenty five respondents were randomly selected with a total of 100
respondents from the study area. Questionnaire and interview were used as the instrument of data collection. The benefits derived
from the reserve cut across all age groups, ethnic background, educational levels and marital status of respondents. The forest reserve
provides multiple benefits in terms of goods and services and environmental protection. Mantel measurement for combined benefits
showed firewood as the most dominant with indispensible value of 34 followed by Teak leaves collection 24 and 16 for geological
material extraction. The major objective of the reserve is timber and poles production but simultaneously other multiple benefits such
as firewood, snails, teak leaves, medicinal plants, bushmeat and geological materials were derived from the reserve. Consequently,
the forest reserve contributes to livelihoods of the surrounding communities. This was measured through perception of the
respondents with positive mean values and standard deviation of Likert rating. It is therefore recommended that increased
conservation effort must be ensured through appropriate forest policy formulation along with the introduction of alternative domestic
energy source to firewood to enable the forest contribute more to the welfare of surrounding communities.
Keywords
Dominant use; Combined benefits; Human dimension; Natural resource
Tropical countries in Africa, especially Nigeria, lay
emphasis on management and protection of forest
through forest reservation. This process of reservation
has significant social, economic and environmental
impacts. Reservation of forests, especially urban and
peri-urban forests, gives rise to benefits in terms of
conservation of biodiversity. The bio-diversity of
plants and animals provides goods and services. The
myriad of goods and services provided by urban and
peri-urban forest have been widely reported
(
Osemeobo et al., 1986; Adekunle, 1998; FAO, 2001,
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/009/y0353e/y0353e00.pdf),
they are timber and non-timber based: examples
include sawn wood, fuel wood, medicines, leaves,
roots, bark, mushroom, wild animals and geological
materials such as sand, gravels, stones and soils.
However, the forests were hitherto valued as land
banks rather than a valuable resource of its own right
providing essential goods and services for livelihood
generation. Consequently, the forest is a key com-
ponent is a natural resource base of any community or
country especially in developing countries. This is
particularly so in third world countries located within
tropical forest formation including Nigeria where most
of the countries have large rural populations
depending on natural resource exploitation for their
livelihood. According to CIFOR (2005), apart from
the forest meeting the economic needs of the rural
people for food and shelter, tropical forests are also a
major source of both industrial wood products and
fuelwood. WCMC (2000) reported that in Nigeria,
rainforest is home to over 1 417 known species in
fauna and at least 4 715 species of vascular plants.
Therefore, forests have the highest species diversity of