A research scholar at the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria Ibadan, Dr. Olalekan Fatoki stresses the need for livelihood support to address the increasing level of forest degradation in Nigeria. Speaking during an interview when he presented the findings from his PhD research during the in-house seminar organised at the institutes , Dr. Fatoki stated that the geometric rate at which forest resources are diminishing at the expense of forest communities livelihood is very alarming with regards to meeting the needs of the future generations.
He further emphasized that about 8.5 million hectares of forests were lost in 2021 alone.

According to Dr. Fatoki, this spate of forest degradation potentially poses adverse effects on forest reserves in Nigeria. Nigeria is presently among the 10 countries with the highest deforestation rate in the world and more worrisome is that by 2046, forest land in Nigeria will be reduced to grasslands if necessary action is not taken and forest-dependent households will be stripped of their livelihood, Dr. Fatoki said.

The Nigerian government launched the afforestation and reforestation project in which 2 billion naira of the ecological funds was allocated to finance the project. Dr. Fatoki said it is necessary to know about the needs and interests from the forests among forest households to assist policy makers in successful planning of the afforestation and reforestation project which informed the objectives of his doctoral research.

The scholar provided several measures to address the issues of deforestation in Nigeria while presenting findings of his doctoral research to researchers and stakeholders in forestry at the institute. Dr. Fatoki stated that state governments should manage the forest in a sustainable way through community participation so that conservation activities and livelihood support can be maximized.

He further stressed that empowerment programmes and skill acquisition centres should be designed and established by the government for forest households particularly the males, since they depended more on the forest than their female counterparts to engage them in other employment aside forestry related ones. Dr. Fatoki also highlighted that forest households should be provided necessary support to shift to other alternative sources of energy for cooking such as clean stoves and gas cylinders at discounted prices to reduce timber harvesting.

Dr. Olaniran Thompson, an associate professor at the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Federal University of Technology Akure, who supervised Dr. Fatoki’s doctoral research finally added that some portion of forests should be reserve for farming activities in the forest rehabilitation scheme as this will simultaneously help achieve livelihood support and sustainable forest conservation