According to the United Nations agency report on the State of the World’s Forests (SOFO) report said across the world especially in countries like Nigeria, forests provide employment, energy, nutritious foods and a wide range of other goods and ecosystem services with tremendous potential to contribute to sustainable development and a greener economy. JOHN OBA, writes
The Nigerian forests support a wide range of forest industries, which include both the formal and informal sub-sectors. And majorities of Nigerians depend on these industries thus placing a lot of pressure on the forest resources of the nation.
The formal sector is essentially wood based and is fairly well developed and comprise mechanical wood industries, including sawmills, particle board, paper and paper board manufactures, veneer and plywood manufactures. Furniture manufacturing is also carried out at a secondary level.
The informal forest sector comprises an informal wood based sector which is the country’s largest user of wood which are burnt as fuel and the non-wood forest products sector. Forest industry is essentially controlled by the private sector in Nigeria.
But according to the director-general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) José Graziano da Silva, in the 2014 edition of SOFO which focuses on the socioeconomic benefits derived from forests said forests contribute more to basic needs and rural livelihoods. They are also a carbon sink, and preserve biodiversity.
The report finds that these socioeconomic benefits are rarely fully recognized in national policies just like in Nigeria despite their enormous potential to contribute to their vital role in providing local communities with food, energy and shelter.
Mr. da Silva went further to say no nation can ensure food security or sustainable development without preserving and using forest resources responsibly.
Opening the 22nd Session of the FAO Committee on Forestry (COFO), the agency asserted in a press release that a significant proportion of the world’s population relies on forest products to meet basic needs for energy, shelter and some aspects of primary healthcare – often to a very high degree.
Yet according to SOFO, clear evidence has been lacking, “Evidence is critical to inform policies on forest management and use, and to ensure that the benefits from forests are recognized in the post-2015 development agenda – not only with respect to the environment but for their contributions to broader social issues as well.”
FAO’s new report stresses that providing local communities with access to forests and markets are powerful ways of enhancing their socioeconomic benefits and reducing poverty in rural areas.
FAO assistant director-general for forests, Eduardo Rojas-Briales said countries should shift their focus, both in data collection and policymaking, from production to benefits – in other words, from trees to people.
“Policies and programmes, both in the forest sector and beyond, must explicitly address the role of forests in providing food, energy and shelter. A new, holistic concept of forests will make them more attractive to donors and investors and ensure that they benefit all people, especially those most in need,” he adds.
The essential role of forests in food security is said to be often overlooked. For example, policy makers have failed to notice wood as a major source of household energy. In many developing countries, it is often the only accessible and affordable fuel for the majority of people, with one in three households using wood as their main cooking fuel.
“We cannot ensure food security or sustainable development without preserving and using forest resources responsibly.” da Silva said.
“Wood provides over half of the total energy supply in 29 countries, including 22 in Africa. In Tanzania, wood fuel accounts for about 90% of total national energy consumption,” notes the report.
Much needs to be done to improve wood energy production, make it more sustainable and to reduce the burden on women and children, who collect 85 per cent of all firewood used in homes.
But in Nigeria generally findings revealed that management of the forest reserves has been inadequate and forest management seem to have been replaced by the project syndrome. The paradigm shift was the conversion of a large portion of the forest reserves particularly in the Guinea Savannah and the High Forest Zone to forest plantations of exotic and indigenous species.
The level to which this has been successful is debatable. Indeed state forestry departments is said to have been unable to protect the forest estate adequately, even the usual boundary maintenance was impossible, thus leading to a period of extensive encroachment in the form of vast farm lands, settlements and excision for other purposes like the current use of Sambisa forest by the Boko Haram.
The private sector is not particularly involved in the management of forest reserves in Nigeria. Their major interest has been in the conversion of forest resources; an approach that have proved singularly inappropriate so far. In recent times, international initiatives to assist some state governments in the management of forest reserves have been taken by NCF, WWF and DFID.
The report revealed that at least 1.3 billion people, or 18% of the world’s population, live in houses built of wood. This is particularly important in less-developed countries, where forest products are usually more affordable than other building materials. The production of building materials, wood energy and non-wood forest products employs at least 41 million people in the “informal” sector worldwide, three times the number of people employed in the formal forest sector.
In addition, forests perform many essential environmental services, such as erosion control, pollination, natural pest and disease control, and climate-change mitigation, as well as provide numerous social and cultural services and nutrients to local communities all year round.
The main obstacles to forestry development and sustainable management in Nigeria according to experts may be summarised to include forest ownership that inhibits federal intervention for sustainability, unlimited powers of State Chief Executives to de-reserve or exploit the forests, forest policy lacks legal backing and so cannot be enforced, poor State funding of forestry programmes and forest management.
While inadequate funding by federal government for forestry development and poor funding of forestry research and training, proliferation of agencies and duplication of duties resulting in cross-sectoral policies and lack of sectoral dialogue, absence of a reliable data base on which to base forestry planning and development like the FAO suggested are also causes of under development in the sector.
Obsolete and unenforceable State Forestry legislation, forest tariffs, which are ridiculously low and are not revised frequently are others. These are further compounded by natural disasters such as drought and flooding; forest fires due to bush burning, extensive arable farming and over grazing of forest lands.
