Non-timber Forest Products (NTFPS): A Pathway for Rural Poverty Reduction in Nigeria

Development strategies try to include local people in the management and utilization of natural resources such as forests so that they receive more of the benefits. Strategies that support, the collection, commercialization of NTFPs by local people have the potentials to provide an increased source of income for people living in the forest areas or near the forest. NTFPs have important subsistence uses. however, forest are being cleared as the global demand for timber rises and as ranching and large scale agricultural activities increase, many plants species become vulnerable to over exploitation and forest resources are increasingly declining. NTFPs are under threats. The paper set out to identify how the potentials posses by NTFPs can be used to reduce rural poverty in Nigeria, as in rural employment and income generation, household food security, household health, environmental amelioration and rural poverty reduction. The paper observed that better understanding of changing role of forest resources for local livelihoods are the road map to sustainability of NTFPs. The study has demonstrated that the non-timber forest products has use categories as food, traditional medicinal value, income generation as well as social/cultural and environmental values and the rural people depend on them directly and indirectly on daily basis. Forestry authorities in the country are advised to enact necessary laws that will recognize the multiple contributions of forests to the people's welfare and fund scientific research on the development of the resources to ensure their sustainability.