Abstract
ABSTRACT
 The economic drive of the people in exploiting forests resources to earn income has in different ways impacted the natural environments of Kogi State leading to vegetation loss and environmental degradation. The study assessed fuelwood harvesting and its implication on vegetation loss in Ofu Local Government Area of Kogi State from 1989 to 2019. The objectives of the study are to; map out deforested areas and ascertain the rate of deforestation between 1989-2019 using Landsat images, identify the relationship between fuelwood consumption and vegetation loss in the area, and determine the pattern of land use/land cover change between 1989-2019 in the study area. Primary and Secondary Data were used. Landsat images of 1989, 1999, 2009 and 2019 obtained from the United State Geological Survey (USGS) with Medium resolution. The result show that the cumulative value of total vegetation lost with decrease of -78 sq km from 1989-1999 which decreases to -145sq km from 1999-2009 and similarly decreases to -508 sq km from 2009-2019 shows that the study area vegetation cover lost is 47.8% spread throughout the three decades. Thus, the total area is 1,680km2 compared to the -430 Km2 of the total vegetation lost. In all, the NDVI result shows a drastic reduction by 0.1647 from 1 to 0.0676 for the periods of three decades. The study suggested that; Government should try to stabilize the provision of other alternative sources of energy (electricity, fossil fuels and coal) at an affordable price, which will encourage people to stop using fuelwood.
Highlights
The rate at which trees are fell is by far more than the rate at which they are planted, and this is due largely to high demand for the commodity brought about by soaring prices of kerosene and gas used for domestic energy generation
The non-forested area increased by 66.1% in the area, this is attributed to fact that most of the forested land are been cut-down mainly to be used as fuelwood, burnt while clearing the land for farming or being grazed by animals
The forested area of 19 sq km (24.4%) was lost from 1989-1999 and increase to 91 sq km (62.8%) from 1999-2009 which decreased to 14sq km (2.8%) from 2009 to 2019
Summary
The rate at which trees are fell is by far more than the rate at which they are planted, and this is due largely to high demand for the commodity brought about by soaring prices of kerosene and gas used for domestic energy generation. Forests are important natural resources that are supportive to the existence of both plants and humans alike (Food and Agricultural Organization, FAO, 2005) They cover approximately one third of the earth’s surface which is equivalent to 4 billion hectares. The extraction of timber for wood fuel account for 61% of total wood removals (FAO, 2010), this highlights the importance of these fuels in the energy mix of many countries This decline has been attributed to various factors that include changing livelihood patterns, such as the transition from hunter-gathering to sedentary agriculture (Sunderlin et al, 2005) and socio-economic demands of development for timber, wood fuels, fibres and urban expansion (Middleton, 2008).
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