Across the world, illegal deforestation threatens revenue earnings and environmental sustainability. Nonetheless, Osun and Oyo document illegal deforestation as just one of the many threats. Boundary disputes, lack of required technical expertise, underfunding and low level of government’s commitment, absence of requisite infrastructure, poaching, and tax evasion foreshadows danger to the forest industry in these states. Beyond these, the sector is still very closed. Data are mostly unavailable, near obsolete, or conflicting. Little is known of the framework for forest resource governance in Nigeria. In this report, DATAPHYTE’s reporter, Paul Adeyeye, reveals his findings as he explores the forest sector in two southwestern states.
It was a hot afternoon in Ile-Ife, Osun State, the sun motioning an impending torrent. The heat alone could have discouraged the workers at the sawmill, yet there was a power cut. The workers could have turned on the backup generator set but they chose not to. Perhaps the high price of Petrol was the challenge, perhaps they wanted to rest.
Hassan Adewale and Gbenga Elufisan were isolated at a corner, in the middle of a chat. With some hesitation, DATAPHYTE’s reporter walked towards them and asked if they were workers at the sawmill. They responded in the affirmative and asked if they could help. With the offer of help, the reporter introduced himself and requested their contributions. Hassan volunteered.
This reporter asked them for details of workings of forest reserves in Ile-Ife.
“Which of the reserves? Area five? Area six? What do you want to go there for? We can tell you all there is to know about the reserves right here. Besides the roads to the reserves are not in good shape, and the transport cost is high”, Hassan responded.
The reporter asked to be told of the licensing framework, the revenue remittance structure, and the forest conservation strategies.
“The start point in forest trade is obtaining a license from the government”, he said referring to the operation of state forests. “When you go to Osogbo to get a license, you will be given a property hammer that allows you access to the forest reserves for exploration”.
Curious, the reporter asked if the license gave an all-time access to the forest. “No, you have to renew your license every year, and you are only assigned to an area of the reserve to explore. You cannot just go all over the place to cut trees that have not been assigned to you”, Hassan replied.
“But how much is the license and how much is paid for the renewal”, the reporter queried further. He noticed some reluctance from Hassan, who had answered the other questions without any hesitation. “Let’s say that with ₦250,000, you can obtain a license and get the property hammer. You also pay a stipulated sum for renewing the license every year”.
Hassan added that once a logger fulfils the requirement of first licensing and subsequent renewal, such person is free to log in the state forest.
Hassan further explained why it is important for loggers to obtain a property hammer at the point of licensing.
“It is the evidence for the license you obtain from Osun State government. It is like a stamp. You inscribe it on each log of timber you have taken from the forest. Come, let me show you the stamp on one of the logs over there”, he said motioning this reporter to some logs.
This reporter met Hassan at one of the sawmills along Ondo road, Ile-Ife. The sawmill, which has no signpost is opposite School of Science, Ile-Ife, just some distance into the journey between Ile-Ife and Ondo.
Timber from the forests are first cut into different sizes at the sawmill before use in the construction industry or in other industries that require them. While some of the processed planks are used locally – within Ile-Ife and its environs, others are transported to other states for use.
Further clarification on the licensing and revenue remittance framework in Osun and Oyo
Providing some clarification, Olayiwola Akanji, the Osun State Director of Forest Resources gave some further insight on the licensing framework for forest exploration in Osun.
The director’s explanation was close to that of Hassan. In any case, licensing precedes forest exploration. Forest licenses are issued at the Ministry of Environment and Sanitation through the Department of Forest Resources.
The director also noted that licensing involves the issuance of a property hammer by the state government. License holders are eligible to be allocated plots or concessions within the forest reserves for conditional forest exploration. However, the director noted that applicants must meet up with certain requirements, one of which is the payment of a stipulated fee.
Yet, Akanji highlighted a slight twist in the revenue uptake framework. “Look”, he said, “Osun has two types of forests. We have the local forests and the forest reserves. Unlike the forest reserves where licenses are obtained for concessions, you pay directly for each tree you take at the local forests”.
The reporter subsequently asked of the difference between local forests and forest reserves. The director responded that local forests are organic in growth. “They are trees that sprout up in communities across the state”, he said. On the other hand, forest reserves are conservation areas set aside and preserved by the government. Osun and Oyo have a total of five forest reserves each.
In Oyo State, DATAPHYTE’s reporter met with Mr. Sunday Moradeyo, the Oyo State Director for Forestry at the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development.
Like Osun, the precondition for forest exploration in the state is a formal registration with the government. To register, applicants must fulfil certain conditions and pay a rate approved by the government. However, the director noted a variation in the revenue uptake framework between Osun and Oyo.
“Here in Oyo, we use revenue consultants and revenue clerks to collect forest revenues. At the beginning of each month, we sit with the revenue consultants and agree on a reasonable monthly forest revenue target. The consultants then make an upfront payment to the government and subsequently administer forest resources for license holders and foresters under some conditions. The revenue clerks on the other hand receive revenues from forest products that are in transit (haulage). They collect the money and remit them directly to the government”, he added.
Payment per stump?
DATAPHYTE’s reporter found some variations in information provided by both directors on concessionary allocation of plots within the forest reserves. According to a working paper by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) on forest finance in Nigeria, forest charges in Osun and Oyo are based on either stumpage (per tree) or out-turn volumes.
By implication, foresters should ordinarily pay for the volume or number of trees fell. But the contrast, which was also confirmed by Hassam, the sawmiller in Ile-Ife, suggests some gaps in the forest charges framework in these states. Yet, while the working paper by FAO could have been discredited for obsoleteness, recent forest revenue data from Oyo state confirm that revenues have been accrued from stumpage (or unit tree) in the last four years.
On the other hand, the forest revenue data obtained by the reporter in Oyo State did not indicate any earning from concessionary allocation of plots within the reserves. However, the reporter could not explore the breakdown of forest revenues in Osun State. When he approached the state’s department of forestry, he was told that “government’s revenue data is confidential”.
The midpoint – a multi-tier remittance structure
Probing the revenue uptake framework further, the reporter discovered that there are different types of forest remittances in both states. First is the initial and periodic payment for licenses for conditional exploration of the forest reserves. This allows foresters access to plots and concessions within the forest reserves. The second is the immediate payment for each tree obtained from the forests.
Femi Fariogun, a timber merchant in Ile-Ife, told the reporter that in addition to the payment for the property hammer that is obtained from the government, loggers also pay tariffs for every tree cut.
“We pay ₦10,500 as tariff for every truck load of timber logs in haulage. A truck load can have up to 40 or 50 logs depending on the sizes of the logs. We pay this tariff to the state government through banks. Subsequently, we present the receipt for the tariff payment for clearance at the checkpoints where forest guards are stationed”, Fariogun told the reporter. He also mentioned a separate annual tax that is levied by the Osun State Government on sawmills operating within the state.
Mr. Akanji, the Osun State Director of Forestry confirmed Fariogun’s position in a follow-up phone interview. Additionally, the director told the reporter that owners of sawmills pay a stipulated sum for initial registration of the sawmills. Subsequently, an additional sum (lesser than cost of initial registration) is paid to the state government by sawmills annually as taxes.
Massive tree cutting, meagre revenue
From data obtained from Global Forest Watch, the reporter discovered that Osun lost 4.48 kilo-hectares of its forest area between 2002 and 2019. This converts to a 11% loss of total tree cover within the 18-year period. On the other hand, Oyo lost 4% (1.34 kilo-hectares) of its forest area within the same period.
The data suggests heavy tree cutting in Osun in the last couple of years. In 2016, 486 hectares of forests was lost in Osun State. The figure became 536 hectares in 2017, 471 hectares in 2018, and 406 hectares in 2019. Contrariwise, Oyo had a significantly lesser tree loss figure. Only 126 hectares of forest area was lost in 2016. Subsequently, Oyo lost a total of 81 hectares, 17 hectares, and 41 hectares of forest area in 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively.
Despite the heavy tree cutting in Osun, and the sizeable cutting in Oyo, the forest industry has contributed only little revenue to both states in the last couple of years. Findings by DATAPHYTE’s reporter revealed that Oyo State made less than ₦90 million from the forest industry between 2015 and 2019.
Specifically, data obtained by the reporter from Oyo State Department of Forestry showed that the industry generated ₦11.6 million in 2015, ₦30 million in 2016, ₦11.7 million in 2017, ₦18.3 million in 2018, and ₦20 million in 2019. The reporter also observed a peak in Oyo state forest revenues in 2016 where a 56% increase was recorded from the average revenue in the five-year period. From the data, earning from forest products increased from ₦212,500 in 2015 to a whooping ₦12 million in 2016!
Comparing the revenue data with the forest depletion data from Global Forest Watch, the reporter found that between 2016 and 2019, each hectare of forest depleted in Oyo State only returned between ₦108,000 and ₦488,000 to the government. In 2016, a hectare generated ₦236,096! Revenue generation per hectare plummeted to ₦144,444 in 2017 and further to ₦107,647 in 2018. However, the figure rose to ₦487,804 in 2019.
Yet, a hectare of forest reserve could have as much as 1,420 trees. Even with 206 trees per hectare, as was reported in a forest reserve in Nigeria, the net revenue generation per hectare is still paltry. The reporter observed that if revenue was held at ₦107,647 per hectare and each hectare had a minimum of 206 trees, Oyo State Government only made about ₦524 for each tree cut in the state.
A request for forest revenue data in Osun State was declined on grounds of confidentiality. However, this reporter obtained the state’s annual audit documents for 2018 and 2019 through a desk search over Osun State information portal.
From the audit document, the reporter got the total revenue earnings for forestry and mineral resources for 2018 and 2019. However, the reporter was not able to determine the net contribution of forestry to state revenue for the two years, neither was he able to ascertain the total revenue of forestry and mineral resources for 2015, 2016, and 2017.
Conversely, the Osun State audit documents for 2018 and 2019 showed that forestry, natural and mineral resources contributed only ₦190 million in revenue in year 2018. The figure jumped to ₦216 million in 2019. Yet, the reporter observed that the actual revenue from these natural resources were points away from the anticipated revenue for the two years. Specifically, for forestry, natural and mineral resources, Osun had a revenue target of ₦500 million in 2018 and ₦500 million in 2019. Still, only 25% of the total projection was realized in 2018. However, when the revenue target was reduced to ₦500 million in 2019, the revenue performance of forestry and the mineral resource sector jumped became 43%.
Revenue not reflective of trees felled
The reporter presented the revenue data to Dr Lasisi Adebisi, a lecturer and researcher in the Department of Forest Resource Management at University of Ibadan. Speaking to the data, Adebisi stated that the figures are not well reported. “The revenue figure should be higher because the forests are not delivering below expectations”, he said.
“The figures you were presented with reflect the huge accountability gaps in the forestry industry. There are still sensitive structural problems to address in the remittance framework. If you have been following local news very closely (referring to news from Oyo State), you would have found that the government is making efforts to recover some of the forest earnings that have been illicitly acquired by some retired civil servants. Regardless, the figures you have are not reflective of the true performance of the sector. However, some of the issues in the industry are quite diverse and delicate to address”, the lecturer said.
From accessible data, the reporter observed that revenue earnings from forestry in both states are below expectations. For instance, the failure of the sector to meet up with revenue projections in Osun State shows considerable underperformance. Also, forest revenues in both states do not match up with the magnitude of the sector. Although the reporter could not establish the revenue target for forestry in Oyo State, the available revenue figures appear low.
According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Oyo State has 98,877 hectares of forest reserve area. Similarly, Osun has 74,138 hectares in forest reserve area. This is in addition to local forests that are present in different parts of both states. Besides, both states still have vast land areas that can be cultivated into forest reserves.
When compared to Canada, the underperformance of the forest industry in both states becomes prominent. In 2017, Canada’s forest industry generated $2.9 billion in revenue to government and accounted for 7% of Canada’s total export in 2018. The industry employed about 210,600 people in the country in 2018 and supported 300 municipalities across the country as a main source of jobs and revenues. Cumulatively, the forest industry contributed $25.8 billion to Canada’s economy in 2018. Given these realities, one is only left to wonder why the forest industry in Osun and Oyo has not delivered enough returns despite its enormous potentialities.
With about 347 million hectares of forest area, Canada is more forested than Nigeria, that has only about 9 million hectares of forest area. Yet, the returns from Canada forest industry can be linked to innovativeness within the industry and the commitment of government to the industry. For example, in 2007, the Canadian government set aside an additional 25.5 million acres of land as protected forest conservation areas.
Despite existent laws, illegalities thrive
While Nigeria’s National Forest Policy, 2006 laid down strategies on forest product harvesting and utilization, biodiversity conservation, deforestation, forest reserve management, and forest administration, illegalities still thrive in the exploration of forests in Osun and Oyo.
For example, when DATAPHYTE’s reporter asked about the conservation strategy in both states, he was told that in principle, loggers replace every tree cut with two. In fact, Hassan, the sawmiller in Ile-Ife, mentioned that the Timber Contractors and Sawmiller’s Association conducts periodic reforestation. Similarly, the director of forestry in Osun states noted that the government commits money to tree planting and forest cultivation. However, in practice, that may not be the case.
At Ile-Ife, the reporter noted the possibility of illegal forest exploration at the sawmill. He observed the absence of the of the Property Hammer Stamp on many timber logs at the sawmill in Ile-Ife. Although Hassan eventually pointed him to a stamped timber log, it was after a frantic search. Hassan would have counted 15 timber logs before successfully finding one that bore a stamp.
Prof. Oluwagbenga Orimoogunje, a lecturer of Geography at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, blamed shortfalls in the sector on the contrast between policy and practices in forest administration in both states. On tree replacement, Orimoogunje mentioned that loggers, as well as the government, do not often replace trees in the reserves. The researcher also stated that loggers commonly violate minimum girth and height requirements and harvest trees prematurely.
Orimoogunje further commented on premature and unguided harvesting of trees, stating that this have led to the loss of some natural species. According to him, in the whole of southwestern Nigeria, only areas that are inaccessible due to topographic and hydrological constraints still have a few natural species.
Drivers of under-performance
While the forest industry of both states appears to be under-performing, the reporter took further steps to investigate the root causes. Beneath the reality are different contributors. First is the considerable neglect of the forestry department by the government. For instance, in Osun State, the director noted that the apparent inefficiency on forest management is strongly connected with the inadequacy of resources to the sector.
According to him, requisite logistical support (such as patrol vehicles, guns, funding, etc.) for monitoring and enforcement of best practices are still missing. Inadequate staffing and an aging workforce that is seldom replaced was another challenge identified by the director in Osun State.
He said, “forest attendants and nursery workers that should replace and replant trees are growing old and a good number are retired”. “Yet, no provision is made to hire new workers with such specialized skills”. “Thus, their positions are left vacant, and this impedes afforestation within the forest reserves”. The situation is similar in Oyo State where the director decried the inadequacy of financial resources to the forest industry.
In addition, the characteristic corruption that pervades the forestry industry has been attributed to poor renumeration of forestry staff as well as the outdated charges for infractions. Speaking to this, Prof. Orimoogunje mentioned that some fines for infraction are still as low as ₦5. Thus, it is convenient and economically appealing for foresters and even forestry staff to avoid processes and pay the meagre fine that is charged for infractions. Besides, the characteristic corruption and bypass of processes that is widespread in Nigeria are also common in Nigeria’s forest industry.
Forestry – which way?
Perhaps the question Osun, Oyo, and indeed Nigeria needs to ask is how to reposition the forest industry within the quest for economic diversification. Dwindling state and national revenues project the need for alternative revenue generation options. Specifically, with declining oil revenues that has impacted on federal allocation to states, including Osun and Oyo, it is time to develop the forestry industry into its full capacity. With Canada as a reference, such repositioning of the forest industry could deliver more revenues to the three tiers of government, while boosting employment and total export. Ultimately, this would stimulate and growth the economy and reduce some of the poverty burden in the country.
Repositioning the forestry industry also implies that Nigeria should focus on other forest products that are non-timber. Products such as charcoal, electricity poles, local sponge, and even items like forest wildlife resources can be invested into to boost revenues. Besides, other products such as pulp for paper, medicinal herbs, fungi, edible fruits and nuts, and other natural products can be invested into and commercialized. Amidst these, there is the need to sustainably administer the forests through guided exploration and reafforestation. Yet, the government sits atop the process of repositioning the forest industry. The government must thus tighten up its measures to improve the overall performance of Nigeria’s forest industry in the country.
An expert adds charts way forward
Speaking to the revenue data, Dr Oluwole Daramola, a senior lecturer in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife noted that the forest revenue figures in Osun and Oyo are unarguably low. The environmental management expert, who also doubles as the Osun State Chairman of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners also mentioned that the underperformance of the industry is largely attributable to lack of innovativeness, under-investment and the indiscriminate practices that characterize forest exploration in both states.
“It is therefore important for the government in both states to situate themselves within the global forestry revolution which is marked by innovativeness, competitiveness and environmental protection. This implies that both states must develop robust forest management strategies that can drive more revenue generation while ensuring environmental protection”, the university don said.
Daramola also emphasized the necessity of increased government’s intervention to the forestry industry in both states. “There is a need to increase funding into the industry and it may be time for government to consider more robust Public-Private Partnership models to improve the performance of the industry”, he said.
“Support for this report was provided by the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ)’ and is made possible through funding support from Ford Foundation”