COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN PROTECTION OF EVIL FOREST AND FOREST RESOURCE UTILIZATION IN BOKI LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF CROSS RIVER STATE, NIGERIA: AN ASSESSMENT OF FOREST DEPLETION

Abstract

This study is on impact of community participation in protection of evil forest and forest resource utilization in Boki Local Government area of cross river state. One research question and hypothesis were formulated to guide the study. The population of this study consist of all 60, 000 farmers in Boki local government area of cross river state that are registered under the agricultural development programmes across the local government area. A purposive sampling technique was adopted in selecting six communities, while simple random sampling techniques was used for this study to select a total hundred (200) registered framers with the agricultural development programme in cross river state. Protection of evil forest questionnaire (PEF) was used for data collection. The data were analyzed with Pearson product moment correlation. The result revealed that protection of evil forest significantly contributes to forest resource utilization in Boki Local Government area in cross river state. Based on the findings and conclusion, it was recommended that communities with pocket of forest (evil forest) should be encouraged to continue to protect their resources and should ensure that no kind of human activities is allowed there.