Abstract
This present chapter studied the impact of anthropogenic footprints on forest resource/reserve and its implications on climate crisis—a case for sustainable forest development using Stubbs Creek in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, as a place-based location. We adopted the concept of sustainable development/forest management in the study. Primary and secondary sources of data were employed in this study. Primary methods included qualitative and remote sensing/GIS. The qualitative method adopted field observation, transect walks, random in-depth interviews of key informants, photography, and focus group discussions. Remotely sensed data was applied in GIS domain to ascertain the extent of the human footprints in Stubbs Creek Forest Reserve. The need for exceptional features and accurately amplified imagery required the use of Landsat 8 satellite image for 2018. Findings from the visible explanation of the satellite image established that the dark green areas interpreted as forest reserve were observed to have intensified anthropogenic undertakings. The supervised classification of land use also showed that the forest reserve absorbed 48.02%, farming activities engaged 30.53%, water bodies 6.68% and built-up area 14.77%. Clearly, farmlands and human settlement indicate areas of vegetal and tree loss due to advanced human footprints especially through deforestation, uncontrolled farming activities, and illegal timber extraction in the forest area. These have affected the extent of forest coverage threatening tree, plant, and animal species that may go into extinction if rapid actions are not taken. There is need for forest actions through development, governance, and execution of modification strategies that should serve as maintainable forest management process to restrict further advancement of human footprints into the reserve.
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