Scholarly works in Social and Environmental Forestry
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://repository.ui.edu.ng/handle/123456789/13518
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Item Mapping the trends of forest cover change and associated drivers in Mau Forest, Kenya(Elsevier, 2021) Jebiwott, A.; Ogendi, G. M.; Agbeja, B. O.; Alo, A. A.; Kibet, R"Mau Forest in the Rift Valley in Kenya is the largest of the five major water towers in the country and also the largest indigenous montane forest in Eastern Africa. As such, the forest is an important natural resource base not only to the local economy but to the East African region at large. In spite of this, the forest has been highly degraded owing to immense anthropogenic pressure from the forest surrounding communities. The aim of this study was to assess the trends in forest cover and the driving forces leading to its change. Landsat TM images of 1984 and 1995, ETM+of 2008, and OLI/TIRS of 2020 were used to depict the trend in forest cover for the period between 1984 and 2020. Focus Group Discussions (FGD) and in-depth interviews were also used to get the perceptions and experiences of the local people regarding the trend in forest cover and the associated driving forces. The results from the qualitative data were integrated with those of remote sensing for assessment of trend in forest cover. The study findings indicate a decline of 25.2% of forest cover within the Mau Forest complex in a period four years shy of four decades, amounting to approximately 699 km2 of tree cover. This trend was fueled by an increasing demand for agricultural land where farmlands increased by 69.9%, as well as logging-legal or illegal-where grassland area increased by 37.2%. Three major drivers of forest cover change identified by the participants include human settlements, logging and expansion of farmlands. We recommend that forest policymakers and managers involve the local community, as the main stakeholders, in all levels of decision making and management so as to promote sustainable use of forest resources and improved management of the forest."Item Human Settlements Interactions and Deforestation in Gambari Forest Reserve located in Oluyole Local Government Area (LGA) of Oyo State, Nigeria(The University of Port Harcourt, 2021) Agbor, C. F.; Alo, A. A.; Aigbokhan, O.J .This study was designed to examine changes in land cover types and the interaction of human settlements with the forest and impact of such interaction on the reserve. Community leaders and randomly selected community dwellers in each of the selected settlements were sampled for group discussion to obtain information on population and services of the forest that attract them to the reserve. Landsat images of 1984 and 2019 were used to extract land cover types using maximum likelihood classifier in Idrisi environment. The level of attractiveness and Interactions of the communities with the reserve were determined employing gravitational model. Results show that there was an increase in the size and number of settlements within the study area and decrease in in forest cover by 34% and 6.02% respectively. It was also revealed from the study that about 39% of the total area was taken over by development (building, roads and other classes) within the forest reserve, while 3% of the developed area gave way to forest cover. The degraded parts of the reserve in recent time was about 16% of the total reserve area and about 78% remained forest cover. From the results it is obvious that the level of interaction and imparts of such interaction depends on the community’s population size rather than distance. It is therefore imperative to regulate the activities of adjoining communities and those within the Gambari forest reserve by appropriate authorities.