Non-timber forest products and their contribution to households employment generation in southwest, Nigeria

Forest resources have significant economic contribution to rural livelihood, especially to forest dwellers. One billion extremely poor people depend partly on forest products while 300-350 million people are highly dependent on those resources for income and sustenance. This study examined non-timber forest products and their contribution to households employment generation in southwestern Nigeria. Primary data were collected through questionnaire administered on 400 household heads within the thecommunities around six forest reserves in Oyo, Ogun and Osun States. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse socio economic characteristics.Constraints faced were analyzed using frequency counts and percentages whereas employment generation through collection of NTFPs per person per year in man days was achieved by looking at number of man days per household per annum.The result of the analysis shows that the age category 40– 49 years had the highest percentage of 55%. Sex of rural households shows that 50.7% of the respondents were males and the result on marital status shows that 87.5% of respondents were married. Majority (66.3%) of the respondents had secondary education. The employment generated per person per year varied between 5.28 to 55.10 man-days. The study concluded that deforestation without afforestation, ignorance of conservation technique due to low level of education, inadequate local people involvement in conservation decisions, instability in government policies and deforestation and overgrazing are the major constraints in the study area. The employment generated from NTFPs is important in contributing to household income, therefore respondents should be granted free access for NTFPs extraction around the reserves. However, it also stressed that there is need for public enlightment and awareness campaigns on appropriate and sustainable forest extraction methods. This is important to sustain collection of NTFPs in the long run.