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Ethnobotanical
Leaflets 10: 113-120. 2006. Ethnobotanical
Study of Economic Trees: Uses of Trees as Timbers and Fuelwoods in Abdulrahaman,
A. A.1, Fajemiroye, O. J.2 and Oladele, F. A.3 Department of Plant Biology Issued ABSTRACT A survey of the five local government areas that make
up Ilorin Emirate in Kwara State, Nigeria, revealed extensive use of economic
trees as timber woods and fuel woods. The forest resources are indiscriminately
exploited by the poor inhabitants who solely depend on the forest to earn
their livelihood. Tree species such as Pterocarpus
erinaceus, Parkia biglobosa, Prosobis africana, Trichilia emetica, Anogeissus
leiocarpus, Danielia oliveri, Khaya senegalensis, Tectonia grandis, Milicia
excelsa and Vitellaria paradoxa are
popular among the inhabitants as fuelwoods, with Vitellaria paradoxa being the most frequently used. Among timber
woods, Pterocarpus erinaceus is the
most highly demanded by artists, casket builders and furniture workers. The
hitherto harmonious relationships between the people and the plants whereby
the people of a particular culture use plant to cure many inherent diseases
and for other natural benefits have been defeated. Presently, the relationships
have turned to destruction of many forests and endangering of many species of
trees. Thus many forests have been turned to mere woodlands in the study
areas. INTRODUCTION The definition of ethnobotany varies from author to
author, but major terms stand out in all; people and plants. Ethnobotany is
therefore defined as the study how people of a particular culture and
religion make use of indigenous plants, and how they classify, identify and
relate to the plants (Ford 1978; Veilleux and King 2005). Ethnobotanists
explored how plants are used by the people for such things as food, shelter,
medicine, clothing, hunting, and religious ceremonies. Plants in this view
cater for all the basic, essential needs of human being. But recent events
have shown that too much dependence on the forests had resulted in extinction
of many species of plants and animals alike. As a result of deforestation,
between 50 and 100 (Myers 1991) or 137 (Urguhart et al. 2005) species of
animal and plant are lost worldwide each day. Also other organisms are losing
species they depend upon, and thus face extinction themselves. Of great
concern is the rate which deforestation is occurring. Currently, 12 million
hectares of forests are cleared annually. At this rate almost all tropical
forests could be lost by the year 2050, except for isolated areas in Oladele (1988) reported that ethnobotany is a field of
study in which taxonomists have taken interest in recent years. This can be
traced to the fact that, of the tens of millions of species believed to be on
Earth, scientists (especially taxonomists) have only given name to about 1.5
millions of them, and even fewer of the species have been studied in depth
(Urguhart et al. 2005). Thus, the loss of species will have great impact on
the planet Earth. The world is losing species that might show how to prevent
cancer or help to find a cure for AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome).
The use of plants as medicine is not only limited to traditional aboriginal
people but according to Myers (1991) as at 1991 over 25% of the world’s
pharmaceutical products were derived from tropical plants. Meanwhile, there is little or no scientific information
on the Nigerian forests that revealed the extent of destruction of forest and
its resources. Based on this, this study aimed at carrying out ethnobotanical
study in some selected LGAs in MATERIALS Study Areas and Materials Five out of
sixteen local government areas (LGAs) in Field Trips and Questionnaire Administration Field trips were taken to the study areas which include
towns, villages and hamlets in these areas. Wood users were the real targets
of the researchers. Questionnaires were structured in such a way that data on
how forest and its resources were consumed and destroyed by the people were
adequately revealed. The respondents to the questionnaire include artists,
carpenters, garri producers, artifacts, charcoal makers, house wives,
blacksmiths, food sellers, mortal makers, bread bakers, foresters, saw millers,
casket builders, furniture workers, tree fellers, farmers, local wine
brewers, wood sellers. These categories of people use woods either as timbers
and/or fuel woods. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed and
administered but only 252 were returned. Field trips, distribution and
administration of the questionnaires covered two months of March and August,
2005. Frequency of Fuel woods and Timbers Frequency of consumption of each
tree species was determined as a percentage of the number of respondents
using it as fuel wood or as timber in relation to the total number of
respondents that used fuel woods and timbers. RESULTS The 252 questionnaires that were returned showed that
male and single respondents are the most active participants in exploitation
of the forest resources (Table 3). Though female and married also aid in this
act but to low extent. The impact of educational background is also a factor;
people with primary and secondary certificates and those without formal
education do more harm to the forests than their counterparts with higher
certificates. Most people do not realized that they are destruction of forest
as any negative effects basically because they are illiterates; lacking basic
educational background. Ironically, the exploitation of the forests is done
mostly by non-indigenes of the study areas. They constituted about 73.81% as
compared to indigenous explorers which constituted just 26.19% (Table 3).
These frequencies can be attested to because the indigenes of Ilorin Emirate
are predominantly cloth weavers, pot makers and small-scale traders. Almost all dry-woods are used as fuel, but some are
more preferred probably because of certain qualities they possessed. Tree
species such as P. erinaceus, P.
biglobosa, P. Africana, T. emetica, A. leiocarpus, D. oliveri, K.
senegalensis, T. grandis, M. excelsa and V. paradoxa are the used fuel woods in Ilorin-Emirate Areas. The
latter is the preferred, used by almost all fuel wood users; it constituted about
75% frequencies of the total fuelwoods used in the study area (Table 4).
Earlier studies by Oladele and Yisa (1989) and Ogunkunle and Oladele (2004)
also confirmed this. The former presumed that this may be due to its (V. paradoxa) high burning capacity and
efficiency, being an oily plant that produces the commercial sheanut from
which shea butter is extracted. The bread bakers, food sellers, garri
producers, charcoal makers, house wives and host of other fuel wood users
confirmed this fact while maintaining that V. paradoxa burns well with considerable heat and produces a lot
of charcoal, less ashes and smoke. In the same vain, charcoal obtained from V. paradoxa had been emphatically
selected as the best. Apart from like of formal education, continuous and
persistent use of wood as fuel may due to high level of poverty of the
ordinary people, and high cost of kerosene, gas and electric stove. It is
cheaper and easy to fetch and use wood as fuel than the alternatives. On the other hands, the artists, wood carvers, casket
builders, furniture workers and mortal makers preferred to use P. erinaceus, A. Africana, T. grandis, D.
oliveri, G. arborea, K. senegalensis, M. excelsa, I. doka, A. leiocarpus, C.
pentandra, and P. africana as
timbers. These species are categorized as being of grade based on their
properties like durability, attractiveness and resistance. Species such as L. lanceolata, H. acida, T. emetica, P.
biglobosa, A. lebbeck and V.
paradoxa are seldom used as timber woods (Table 5). P. erinaceus is the most frequently used timber. Heavy demands
for paper products by establishment such as Nigerian Paper Mill, Jebba, a
government-owned, had consequently affected availability of timber species
particularly G. arborea in the
study areas. Meanwhile, about ten species have been identified as most
endangered species in Ilorin-Emirate (Table 6) because of frequency at which
they are removed from the forest. Though governments gave permission to some
tree fellers, there are some illegal tree fellers called “payapayaba”. These
group of fellers destroyed many immature trees on daily basis. The most
painful aspect of this act is that the tree planting is too low in comparison
to the rate of tree felling. Carter and Gronow (1992) and Ogunkunle and
Oladele (2004) attributed this attitude to the unavailability of time and land, lack of
knowledge in tree planting, sex barriers, age barrier, availability of trees
in abundance in the natural forest or bush, no remuneration for planting tree
and so on, in studies in Dolakha and Dhankuta districts of Asia and Ogbomoso
in Nigeria respectively. Meanwhile what remain as forests in Ilorin-Emirate
Area are in the rural area, the metropolis are without forests any more. The
problem is much that some species are endangering (Table 6), and if care is
not taken they may go into extinct. The
major function of ethnobotany, as identified early, is to draw a kind mutual
relationship between the people in an area and the plants. The plants provide
for the people the three basic needs of man namely food, cloth and shelter
while the people on the other hands jealously guide and protect the plants
against destructions. But as the world populations keep increasing especially
in the third world countries, the rate of illiteracy and poverty are
concurrently increasing too. These are therefore recognized as the prime
factors that changed the mutualism between human and plants to that of
parasitism whereby man took all from the forests with little or no any form
of replenishment. Though, many laws and by-laws are promulgated forbidding
indiscriminate removal of forest resources. These measures have little or no
effect at all on the activities of the forest destroyers. The authors of this
paper rather suggest that more attentions should be paid to improvement of
economical status of the people, and ensure provision of accurate, effective
and sustainable education of the populace. If these are vigorously pursued,
there will be strict compliance to the governments’ laws and regulations
regarding felling and planting of trees.
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Nature and Status of Ethnobotany, Anthro. Papers No. 67, Global Futures
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J. 1991. Whose Trees? A People’s View of Forestry Aid. Panos Institute, Leach, G. and Mearns,
L. 1988. Behind the Woodfuel Crisis. Earthscan, Lean, G. and
Hinrichsen, D. 1992. WWF Atlas of the Environment. Helcoan Publishing, Myers, N. (Ed.). 1985.
The Gaia Atlas of Planet Management. Pan Books, Myers, N. 1991. Trees
by the Billions. International Wildlife Sept. /Oct. 1991: 12-15. Ogunkunle, A. T. J. and
Oladele, F. A. 2004. Ethnobotanical study of fuelwood and timber wood
consumption and replenishment in Ogbomoso, Oladele, F. A. 1988. A
Manual on Botanical Prospecting for New Sources of Food in Oladele, F.A. and Yisa,
A. B. 1989. Frequencies of dominant tree species used as sources of fuelwood
in Ilorin Local Government Area, Urguhart, G.,
Ghomentowski, W., Skole, D. and Barber, C. 2005. Tropical Deforestation.
Earth Observatory, NASA. Veilleux, C., King, S.
R. and Morganstein, L. (Eds.). 2005. An Introduction to Ethnobotany. Table 1. Urban, semi-urban and rural settlements in the
study areas.
H= Headquarters;
LGA= Local Government Area Table 2. List of economic
tree species commonly encountered in the study areas.
F = Fabaceae Table 3. Biodata
frequencies of the respondents to the questionnaires.
Table 4. Frequency of
the fuelwoods used in Ilorin-Emirate Area of Kwara State, Nigeria.
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