There are growing campaigns to promote land titling to secure Land Tenure and Property Rights (LTPRs) in African agriculture. Theoretically, deed registration should reduce land disputes, facilitate land use as collateral for loans, and stimulate investment in land improvement for increased productivity, income and food security. Empirical evidence in these regards, however, remains anecdotal, and sometimes conflicting. This paper reports a study that examined LTPRs' among smallholder rice farmers in Northern Nigeria and the influence on household food security (HFS). It used cross-section data obtained from 549 rice farmers, selected by multistage sampling across 84 rice-growing communities, seven ( 7) States and the three (3) geopolitical zones in northern Nigeria. Data collection was by personal interviews of adult members of the farmers' households, focusing on the households' socio-economics, livelihoods, and LTPRs on farmland cultivated during the 2016/17 farming season. HFS was assessed within the framework of the United States Department of Agriculture' HFS Survey Module. LTPRs assessment was in terms of the type (source) and registration of titles to farmlands. HFS modelling was within the framework of Poisson, Instrumental Variable Poisson (IVP) and Zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) regression methods, with endogeneity concerns and choice of specification addressed within Hausman specification tests.The results show that land titling is not endogenous in the estimated models; and that HFS is significantly (p < 0.01) enhanced with an increase in shares of freehold and leasehold in the households' farmlands, as against reliance on communal holdings. Holding de jure secure title to farmlands, however, had no significant influence on HFS. The evidence supports the need to develop land markets to enhance the ease of land transfer, as part of measures to enhance HFS in northern Nigeria.

This study was carried out to examine fuelwood sellers' perception of environmental issues in Borgu Local Government Area of Niger State, Nigeria. A total of 120 fuelwood sellers supplied primary data on their socioeconomic characteristics, sources of information on environmental issues, tree species commanding high patronage and perception of environmental issues. More than half of the respondents fall within the age of 31-40 years (53%), 63.3% were females, 87.5% were married and 61% had no formal education while 51% obtained information on environmental issues from radio and television. The results further indicated that Detarium microcerpum, Vitellaria paradoxa, crossopteryx febrifuga, Pterocarpus erinaceus, Combretum nigricans and isoberlinia doka were the tree species commanding high patronage in the study area. Also, the fuelwood sellers have Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta http://www.unaab.edu.ng adequate information on environmental issues not only in their locality but globally, the study concluded that since they are fully aware of the consequences of their activities on the environment, they should be involved in the design of policies aimed at reducing the rate of extraction of fuelwood in the area.

No abstract

The study aimed to understand local communities' perceptions of Nigeria National Parks and was conducted in ten per cent of the communities within 0-10km of park boundaries. Data were obtained from 10 per cent of the total household heads through questionnaire administration and were analysed with descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression. A large percentage of the respondents were male; their median age was 42 years; 56.6 per cent had non-formal education; the median annual income was N7000 (US$ 43.75); and 86.9 per cent were farmers. The respondents had generally negative perceptions of park management over issues of strict protection, penalties, impact of existence of parks on their communities and exclusion from park management. Education (beta = 0.10, p<0.01), income (beta =0.12, p<0.01) and community distance from park boundary (beta = 0.31, p<0.01) were the best predictors of local communities' perceptions. There is an urgent need for a sustained policy on access to formal education in communities around Nigeria National Parks; for rural development policies that enhance income from farming and other non-farm alternative livelihood activities; for the sharing or recycling of revenue between the local communities and the parks; employment and infrastructural development; community involvement in park management and decision-making; and alternative dispute resolutions to ensure positive perceptions of the parks and other protected areas.

Assessment of the population structure and reproductive status based on hunters’ returns to bush meat market were carried out in Ogun state, Nigeria. Information on animal species was collected before they are dissected or processed; names of species, age class, sex, weight and sources. After dissection, its reproductive status viz number of foetus and stages of development were observed. The data collected covered a period of three months. The result from the study showed that nine hundred and eighty-nine animals were returned by hunters to the market within the period. The highest hunters’ returns occurred at week four while the highest returns were also during the first four weeks. Canerat (Thryonomys swinderianus) and Maxwell duiker (Cephalophus maxwelli) were animals with the highest frequency returned. The result shows that 342 fetuses were recorded from all the species. The highest of fetuses was from Cane rat and Maxwell duiker. Seven orders of mammals were discovered in the population and rodentia had the highest percentage followed by artiodactyla. In terms of sex structure of the wild animal returned, female had the highest population (558) than male which has 431 animals. Also, for the age class structure, the adult had the highest frequency and percent than the sub-adult and juvenile. The patterns of returns by hunters from various sources showed that the highest animal return was from Tibo (157) and the least from Oba (8). The highest mean weight of animals returned was 19.0±0.00kg and the least mean weight of animal was 0.46±0.22kg. It is therefore, recommended that wildlife resources should be treated as an asset to be conserved, managed and given emphasis in land management for the benefit of all humanity. Vigorous efforts towards checking indiscriminate hunting of animals of all sexes and reproductive conditions must be pursued.