The establishment of government-controlled forest reserves in Nigeria, 1897-1940

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Periodical article

Title:	The establishment of government-controlled forest reserves in Nigeria, 1897-1940
Author:	Egboh, E.O.
Year:	1979
Periodical:	Savanna: A Journal of the Environmental and Social Sciences
Volume:	8
Issue:	2
Pages:	1-18
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Nigeria
Subjects:	agricultural policy forestry
Abstract:	Forests and woodlands in Nigeria perform protective and productive functions. At the beginning of the colonial period, it was recognized that they were being threatened by man's activities, such as the bush fallowing system of farming and overexploitation for forest produce. To ensure that adequate forests and woodlands would continue to exist in perpetuity, the colonial government embarked on a policy of protecting 25 percent of the country's forests and woodlands by creating forest reserves under government control. While appreciating the benefits of forestry to Nigerians, the government was nonetheless primarily interested in ensuring timber supplies to Europe. In implementing its reservation policy, the Forest Department faced a number of problems, including local opposition, a head-on clash with the Health Department's tsetse fly control scheme, inadequate personnel, bush fires, and bureaucracy. As a result of these problems, only some 5.8 percent of the country had been reserved by 1940. Notes, ref.