Browsing by Author "Adeniyi, A.B"

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Perception of climate change effects on forest-dependent rural livelihoods in Ondo State, Nigeria
(2016-06) Azeez, I.O; Jimoh, S.O; Adeniyi, A.B
Rural population is the highest in developing countries with pathetic living condition and lack of resources to cope with ecological perturbations apart from not having social opportunities to cushion the impacts of extreme events. This paper reports the impacts of climate change on the livelihoods of forest dependent rural populations in Ondo State, a forest rich southwestern part of Nigeria, with the view to identifying possible adaptation strategies. Stratified multistage simple random sampling was used in selecting respondents for the study. The state was stratified into Local Government Areas (LGAs) and Four (4): Odigbo, Akure North, Owo and Idanre were randomly selected. In each of the LGAs selected, one forest reserve each (Oluwa, Ala, Owo and Idanre, respectively) was selected. Three rural communities surrounding each of the forest reserve were then selected as study site while 30 households were randomly selected for interview. Primary data were collected from the selected households in the selected communities using a set of structured and open-ended questionnaire. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics at α0.05. Generally, more (62.2%) respondents noticed changes in rainfall pattern, which led to flooding in 2014, while 37.2% noticed increase temperature, which led to the drought of 2007. On availability of forest resources, majority (78.6%) of the respondents noticed changes in the availability of Mansonia, while 12.0%,8.0%, 5.5% and 4.7% attested to changes in the availability of Terminalia superba, Gmelina, Tectona grandis (Teak) and Obeche, respectively. Similarly, 78.0% of the respondents noticed changes in availability of firewood, while changes in the availability of seeds, fruits and mushrooms were attested to by 15.0%, 4.7%, and 1.4% of the respondents, respectively. Identified impacts of climate change by the respondents included among others reduction in agricultural production, flooding, increased livestock death and shortage of food. Suggested mechanisms for coping with climate change adversities included changing of the planting date, practice of agroforestry, planting of trees and early harvesting regime. Climate change was found to impact agricultural and rural land use in the study area. Therefore, the adoption of agroforestry practices as rural land use is recommended in Ondo State as an adaptation measure against climate change.
Socio-economic imperatives of forest based rural livelihoods in climate constrained environments in Ondo State, Nigeria
(Forestry Association of Nigeria, 2016) Azeez, I.O; Adeniyi, A.B
The rural people have been recognized as knowledge holders on climate change. This work examines the socio-economic imperatives of such knowledge particularly as it affects livelihood in selected forest fringe communities in Ondo State, Nigeria. Multistage random sampling technique was adopted in which 4 Local Government Areas (LGAS): Odigbo, Akure North, Owo and Idanre were randomly selected in Ondo state. In each of the LGAs, a forest reserve (Oluwa, Ala, Owo and Idanre, respectively) was selected. Three rural communities surrounding each of the forest reserves were then selected while thirty respondents were randomly selected for interviews in each of the selected communities with the use of well-structured questionnaire. The data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. More males (52.9%) were interviewed with majority (95.6%) being married while modal age group (42.2%) was between 30 and 40 years. A high percentage of the respondents (30.8%) had no formal education while 34.7% had only primary school leaving certificates. The modal household size was between 11 and 15 people in Owo LGA. Farming was the major source of livelihood for all the respondents. Most of the respondents (52.6%) were aware of climate change through radio. The source of their awareness was however, discovered to be a function of location, age, level of education and secondary occupation. Sources of awareness were found to be dependent upon respondents’ LGA (χ2 = 30.2, df = 12, p = 0.003), age (χ2 = 41.6, df = 8, p = 0.000), level of education (χ2 = 31.2, df = 16, p = 0.103) and secondary occupation (χ2 = 69.2, df = 44, p = 0.009). The dependence of respondents’ livelihoods on forest resources in this study is dependent on their LGA (χ2 = 25.0, df = 4, p = 0.000), age (χ2 = 34.6, df = 10, p = 0.001), years of resident (χ2 = 46.6, df = 12, p = 0.010) as well as their primary (χ2 = 64.5, df = 12, p = 0.000) and secondary (χ2 = 32.9, df = 7, p = 0.000) occupations. The annual income of respondents’ from their primary sources of livelihoods is dependent on their LGA (χ2 = 29.8, df = 12, p = 0.003), sex (χ2 = 23.0, df = 8, p = 0.003), Age (χ2 = 86.5, df = 16, p = 0.000), level of education (χ2 = 70.5, df = 16, p = 0.000), marital status (χ2 = 79.9, df = 8, p = 0.000) and primary occupation (χ2 = 363.9, df = 40, p = 0.000). The study established interdependence among respondents’ livelihoods, their socio-economic background, forest resources in the study area and climate. However, such dependency is location specific. It further observed climate change as negatively affecting agriculture and by extension food production in the study area. Creation of awareness for sustainable use of forest resources among residents and the identified alternative livelihoods to farming in Ondo State were recommended.