Incentives for collaborative governance of natural resources: A case study of forest management in southwest Nigeria

The present arrangement of natural resource governance in Southwest Nigeria encourages unhealthy competition in forest exploitation and drives deforestation and forest degradation. An inclusive and collaborative forest governance arrangement will incentivize local communities to assume greater responsibilities and make stronger commitments to managing forests and woodlands. In this study, using social survey instruments, we engaged households, major forest resource users, community leaders and senior government officials in forestry and environment departments across the six states of southwest Nigeria. The results show that there is a general agreement among all the stakeholders that the forest and woodland resources are highly degraded, deforested, depleted and over exploited with government focusing mainly on revenue generation and less on forest regeneration. Majority of the respondents do not think the existing forest policies are effective and achieving their targets to reduce deforestation, forest degradation and enhance better management of natural resources. Only the metrics related to revenue generation received positive ratings. Nineteen (of the 25) metrics dealing with good, inclusive forest governance and management practices received negative ratings. Majority of the forest users' and community leaders have never been involved in any aspect of forest management. Empowerment including financial incentives, monetary rewards, and support for alternative livelihoods for households; business support loan for major forest resource users; and provision of basic social amenities for communities are the major incentives required to enable them fully partner with government for forest and woodland management. The state forestry departments should be reformed to be independent and self-accounting. This will enable them to pursue forestry revenue based on sustained yields, plan and execute sustainable forest programmes and projects and closely engage with other stakeholders outside the government.