Forest Degradation and Deforestation in Nigeria; Poverty Link

Forests are the most diverse terrestrial ecosystems, housing a quite large majority of the world’s terrestrial species. It provides many social, economic, and environmental benefits. In addition to timber and paper products, forests provide wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities, it prevents soil erosion and flooding, provides clean air and water as well. Degradation and Deforestation occurs when changes happens which affects the characteristics of a forest negatively in such a way that the value and production of its goods and services decline or it is converted to an alternative permanent non-forested land use such as agriculture, grazing or urban development. These changes are caused by both direct and indirect causes with direct causes being human activities e.g agricultural expansion, road construction etc while indirect causes are economic growth etc. A positive correlation between the level of poverty and utilization of forest resources which leads to deforestation and exploitations of forest resources has been established, with an estimation of more than 90% of the 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty dependence on forests for some part of their livelihood. Hence, degradation and loss of forests pose a grave threat to biodiversity. The result of degradation and deforestation include flooding, reduction in forest carbon storage, climate change etc. some perceived way forward to tackling this are poverty reduction programs, addressing land tenure matters , forest monitoring mechanism amongst others.