The Resources of the Niger Delta: Forests
12.2.5 POTENTIAL
This may be degraded forest or wasteland (including very low yielding or abandoned agricultural land) that can practicably be managed back to some sort of viable forest ecosystem capable of sustainably yielding forest products. Such management will include plantings of mixed indigenous forest species. Mono-specific plantings of indigenous or exotic trees are plantations, which can never function as true forest but can be appropriate in certain situations).
12.2.6 LOST
Some land can never be practicably brought back to forest use. This is either because it has some other well established use (agriculture, settlement, commercial, industrial); or because it is adjacent to a land use that makes forest establishment impracticable (e.g. beside urban areas where squatting or the risk of fire is a problem).
12.2.7 CATEGORIES OF FOREST RESOURCES IN THE NIGER DELTA
In terms of human needs, there are four main categories of forest resources.
Timber
- Construction - such as houses and community buildings
- Joinery - such as furniture.
- Fuel, generally for processing food:
- drying fish;
- drying rice, after it has been soaked and prior to milling;
- distilling raffia wine into gin;
- sterilising and softening oil palm fruit;
- separating palm oil; and
- drying bush-meat.
- Canoes and paddles.
- Small wood items like axe and hoe handles, fence posts, cages for domestic animals and carvings.
Non-timber Forest Products - NTFPs
Until recently these have been overlooked, and yet in terms of income and income equivalent they often yield more than timber. When forestland is converted to other uses, it is the NTFPs that communities, and especially women, miss the most. Some of the NTFPs that come out of the Niger Delta forests so as to indicate the range.
- Bush Meat is a prime source of protein and cash income in the FAM ecozone, and although it is technically illegal to hunt a wide range of animals (The Endangered Species Decree No. 11 of 1985) commonly hunted animals include: Duikers ("Antelopes"), Civets, Monkeys, Cane Rats ("Grass-cutters"), Porcupines, Pangolins, Giant Rats ("Hares"), Squirrels, Red River Hogs ("Bush Pig"), Monitor Lizards, Otters ("Bears"), and Water Chevrotains.
- Other animals collected in the freshwater forests include Snails and Fish; in the mangroves, Oysters, Crabs and Periwinkles are taken.
- Types of Kola Nut (e.g. Cola acuminata) which are chewed as a stimulant.
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