IMPACTS OF DEFORESTATION ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF AKWANGA NASARAWA STATE

Human activities, climate change coupled with rural poverty have led to increased deforestation in the rural areas of Nigeria. Given the low productivity of the soil in the tropics to which Nigeria belongs, the poor state of the farmers and subsistence nature of agriculture in Nigeria, green environment may be difficult to sustain. There is therefore the need to better understand the constraint and challenges of deforestation especially in the study areas of Nasarawa state. This paper seeks to assess the extent of the impacts of deforestation on socioeconomic development of the study area and how the stakeholders will adopt environmentally friendly management options for forest resources. This study adopted the quantitative methodology including interviews with stakeholders using survey questionnaire. Five villages were randomly selected for inclusion in this study. The justification for the selection of the villages was based on the fact that they featured different forest management problems. Findings revealed that the knowledge base of the different stakeholders about technological dimensions of forest resources management is very low due to lack of awareness and low educational attainment. There is therefore the need to broaden stakeholders’ initiatives to cope with contemporary challenges posed by deforestation in these villages.