Increasing signs of forest fragmentation in the Cross River National Park in Nigeria: Underlying drivers and need for sustainable responses

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Protected areas are expectedly intact habitats for biodiversity and key for ecosystem conservation. However, where inadequately protected, human-induced forest fragmentation can degrade them and reduce their functioning. Therefore, monitoring forests in protected areas is essential to ascertain their protection. This paper assesses forest fragmentation in the Cross River National Park, a biodiversity hotspot in the tropical rainforest of Nigeria. Forest fragmentation was analyzed using the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response framework. Fragmentation analysis of the State used class-level pattern metrics on Landsat and Sentinel images from the years 2000, 2015 and 2020. Forest fragmentation has reduced total forest area, decreased average size of forest patches, increased the number of forest patches and amount of edge. Only the isolation of forest patches has not yet reached a measurable intensity. However, spatio-temporal forest fragmentation over the years 2000, 2015 and 2020 indicates a rising trend, especially between 2015 and 2020. The Drivers, Pressures, Impacts and Responses were investigated through a systematic literature review. Many studies show that the main proximate Drivers of forest fragmentation are agricultural activities mainly by the local communities, demand for forest resources by the growing population, and by external actors through illegal logging and infrastructure building, which have increased. However, wider literature highlight issues of disproportionately blaming local resource users, and the need to examine the neglect of justice, rights and local values, and their implications for sustainable protected areas. Reported Impacts include hindered migration of the endangered Cross River gorilla and impaired ecosystem services like water cycling, carbon sequestration and disease regulation. Responses have generally excluded the local communities, have failed or are yet to become effective. There is thus a need to identify, together with the involved actors, why measures have failed and to implement more sustainable options to reduce fragmentation in the park while addressing local users’ needs.