The Effect Of Forest Degradation On Community Livelihood In The Rainforest Of Cross River State, Nigeria.

Abstract

The conflict between man and the rainforest ecosystem has over time been very controversial due to man’s impact on the
forest ecosystem. It is against this backdrop that this paper seeks to evaluate the effect of forest degradation on
community livelihood within the rainforest zone of Cross River State. Information on forest products, distance and time
require for forest exploitation and forest products harvested were obtained and analyzed using ANOVA and multiple
regression. Results obtained shows that the rainforest ecosystem has been degraded due to excessive exploitation of the
forest resources which adversely affect the secondary forest and fallows as evidenced in the F-ratio of 52.71 greater than
the t-ratio of 3.15 at 0.05 level of confidence. However, it was discovered that there was a significant variation in the
amount of income generated across all the stages of the forest which shows that the quantity of forest product and
income of the people tend to vary with the degrading condition of the forest ecosystem. Therefore, effective measures
should be put in place in order to stop the forest ecosystem from excessive depletion