Land Secession in Nigeria Forest: Integrating Evidence from Agricultural Practices and Land Use Change of Omotosho Forest Reserve, Ondo State, Nigeria.

This study assessed agricultural activities and landuse dynamic in land seccesssion of Omotosho Forest Reserve, Ondo State -Nigeria by identifying the landuse/cover in the study area, examined the pattern of change; measured the extent of land secession and finally assessed the drivers of forest secession in the study area.Landsat ETM+ 2000, Landsat OLI 2010, Sentinel 2015 and Sentinel 2020 were acquired for this study. Digital image processing involving georectification, enhancement, sub-mapping and classification were performed on the images. The classification produced six landuse/cover classes which are; dense forest, shrubs, farmland, water body, open spaces and settlement. Area analysis involving cross tabulation analysis, and calculation of the landuse area in hectares and square kilometres were used to determine the pattern and extent of forest land secession in the study area. More so, Six settlements; Akinfosile, Aye, Igbotako, Ikoya, Iju-Odo and Omotosho were selected for key informant interview from where six respondents each encompassing both male and female gender of 30years above were selected for interview. And their responses were analysed using content analysis approach.The results of the digital image processing showed that dense forest occupied 29,727 Ha in year 2000, and decrease although to 16,071 Ha in year 2020. Similarly, shrubs area increased all through the study period from 10,108 Ha in 2000, to 14,348 Ha in 2020. Farmland occupied 9,247 Ha in 2000 and 13,462 Ha in 2020 indicating increase secession in farmland all through the study period. Area occupied by Water body decreased all through the study period from 1,064 Ha in 2000, to 699 Ha in 2020. The forest land was seceded to open spaces from 984 Ha in 2000, to 3,014 Ha in 2020. The settlement area expanded in the study area from 4,718 Ha in 2000, to 8,252 Ha in 2020 representing significant increase with time. The drivers of forest land secession from the key informant interview conducted were agricultural activities, deforestation and settlement expansion with agricultural activities accounting for the highest land secession.This study therefore concluded that the larger portion of the Omotosho Forest Reserve seceded to other land uses and majorly attributed to agricultural land use and its associated activities.