Fuel wood is an important source of income and domestic energy for both rural and urban households in Nigeria. The marketing of fuel wood in Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria was investigated with a view to assess the profitability and contribution of fuelwood marketing to sustainable livelihood in Oyo state. Data for the study were obtained from a total of 50 randomly selected respondents through interview schedules, structured questionnaires applications and personal observation. Descriptive statistical tools such as frequency, percentages and tables were used to analyze variables of interest such as age, gender, marital status, education, tribe, experience and type of institution. Profitability analysis was used to examine the profitability of the enterprise. The results revealed that majority (86%) of the marketers were females, 44% had only primary education while 36% had 11 to 20 years of the business experience. The Profitability analysis revealed that an average marketer incurred an average of total variable cost of 31,731.82 naira per month but earned average revenue of 38,290.00 naira which indicated that an average marketer earns 6,558.18 naira as gross margin per month. This thus indicated that fuel wood marketing is profitable. Transportation, season and government policy are the major marketing constraints of fuel wood. It is therefore recommended that government should provide good transportation incentives such as good road networks that will reduce the transaction costs and make transportation easy for fuel wood marketers.

Cooking energy is a vital aspect of life for the survival of any household. It is a daily affair since man must eat in order to continue to exist in this planet. Many types of cooking energy exist and households must appropriately choose among them. In making choices, certain factors influence households choice, hence the need for this study. The study examined the determinants of household cooking energy choice in Oyo state, Nigeria. Primary data was used for the study. The data was collected using structured questionnaires administered to 130 households. The households were sampled from main areas in Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyze the data. The result indicated that fuel wood, charcoal, kerosene, gas and electricity were the cooking energy used by households in the study area but kerosene was the most preferred. Kerosene is the cooking energy choice that households find it difficult to do without. The study further revealed that choice of cooking energy is influenced by some factors such as income of households, prevailing weather condition/ season of the year, types of houses/ dwelling place of households, price of cooking energy, nearness to sources and familiarity of household to a cooking energy choice. Households with high income per month often choose gas and electricity and used kerosene as a backup while those with low income per month often choose fuel wood, charcoal and kerosene. The level of satisfaction obtained from kerosene, gas and electricity were high, moderate and very high respectively. It is therefore recommended that government should provide means of increasing the welfare / standard of living of the households in the study area so that they will be able to afford gas and electricity as cooking energy choice. This will therefore protect them against the harmful effects of using charcoal, fuel wood and stove. Government and other stakeholders in power sector should also find permanent solution to the irregular electricity supply in the study area so that households will find its usage more dependable and reliable.

Marketing of fuel wood is an important source of livelihood for most parts of Nigeria. The study examined the economics of marketing of wood fuel in south western Nigeria with a view to determine the socio-economic characteristics of the marketers, the profitability of marketing wood fuel, the market structure and constraints to profitability. Data for the study were obtained from a total sample of 100 randomly selected wood fuel marketers through interviews schedules and application of structured questionnaires. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the socio-economic characteristics of the marketers. Cash analysis was used to determine the profitability of the enterprise while Gini-coefficient was used to examine the markets' concentration. The result showed that majority of the marketers was in their active years as 51% were between 21-40 years of age. 71% were female while 56% of them were married. Most of the marketers (76%) had formal education and were well experienced in the business. Cash analysis revealed that marketing of wood fuel is profitable with an average Gross margin of 21,190.65 naira per month. The marketing efficiency was found to be 128% and the rate of return on investment was 28% which indicates that for every 100 naira investment in the business, the marketers will enjoy a return of 28 naira. The value of Gini-Coefficient (0.393) indicates high level of market concentration and inefficiency in the market structure. Transportation was the greatest constraint to the business profitability followed by season of the year and government policy.

The utilization pattern of Vitex doniana a non-timber forest product (NTFP) was examined in Uromi, Esan North East Local Government Area of Edo State, Nigeria. Data was collected from one hundred (100) respondents in households using interview and questionnaire survey. Descriptive statistics, t-test and Pearson chi-square were used to analyse data collected. The result showed that V. doniana is well known as an important NTFP in the area since majority of the respondents (97.8%) are aware of the tree species as a result of the high rate of consumption (88.6%). It was observed that some respondents (77.8%) do not consume it because of their ignorance about it, while few (22.2%) was because of the color. The result also shows that, (48.8%) of the respondents consume it as food while 16.3% and 35% consume it for the purpose of ethno medicine and food combined with ethno medicine respectively. This result also reveals that fruit is the major part consumed for food (89.4%) and ethno medicine (46.3%). It is a widely accepted fruit tree species in the study area, based on the fact that about 95.6% agreed that it is widely accepted and its consumption trend is on the increase (88.3%) which shows that the people like it. On the other hand, many people (37.5%) cannot access it due to its threatened conservation status as it is no longer cultivated in the forest as before as well as its lack of NAFDAC number. However, the result of the chi-square shows that there is no significant difference (p>0.05) in the consumption of this species among the various primary occupation categories and also, that the consumption rate does not significantly (p>0.05) depend on the educational status. Chisquare also shows that, there is no significant (p>0.05) difference in their consumption. Consumption of V. doniana significantly (p<0.05) depends on household size and consumption does not depend significantly (p>0.05) on the economic status. Therefore appropriate recommendations capable for the sustainability of the species were given.