ABUNDANCE, DIVERSITY AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF EDIBLE WILD PLANTS IN SOME FOREST RESERVES IN SOUTH-WEST, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study investigated the abundance, diversity and socio-economic benefits of edible wild plants in some selected forest reserves in South-Western Nigeria. To achieve these, multistage sampling technique was employed for the study. At the first stage, three forest-belt States (Ondo State, Ogun State and Osun State) were purposely selected as the study areas. The second stage was a purposive selection of two forest reserves which were: Akure forest reserve and Idanre forest reserve from Ondo State, Omo forest reserve and Olokemeji forest reserve from Ogun State and Shasha forest reserve and Oke-Oni forest reserve from Osun State. At the third stage, three forest communities were purposely selected in each of the selected forest reserve. Lastly, semi-structured questionnaire which were used to obtain information from 180 household heads and 36 key informants from the entire forest communities were administered. In addition, group interviews were conducted in order to determine group consensus and define respondent’s socio-economic benefits on edible wild plant species in the study area. The selected wild plants were based on respondent’s choice. For abundance and diversity study of edible wild plants, two transects of 330 m each in length with a distance of 200 m between the two parallel transects were used in each of the study site. Eight (8) sample plots of 20 m x 20 m at 50 m interval were laid in each of the selected forest reserves. Alpha Diversity Variety Index, Species Diversity Index, Simpson’s Index and Mangalef’s Index, Shannon’s Equitability (E H ) were used to measure plant species richness, evenness, and diversity in the selected forest reserves. The results of the study showed that edible wild plants based on uses were categorized into food and ethno medicine. The plant products include highly nutritious wild fruits, wild leafy vegetables, nuts/seeds, roots, flowers and barks. The research work established that edible wild plants provide food security to the forest dwellers especially during food shortage and that the wild medicinal plants are used by the forest dwellers to prevent and cure both common sicknesses and chronic diseases in the study area. Almost all the forest dwellers collected and used edible wild plants for food security, ethno-medicine and sold to generate little income to sustain their livelihoods in the study area. The Chi-square test confirmed that age of respondents has significant association with the uses of edible wild plants in the study area. While there was no significant association between religions, gender, educational level and economic status of the respondents and uses of edible wild plants in the study area. The diversity and abundance of plant species in the study area implies that some of the edible wild plants used for food in the selected forest reserves are moderately available. But those used for medicinal purposes were abundantly available in the forest reserves. The deplorable level of forest reserves in the study area, especially Olokemeji, Oke-oni and Shasha forest reserves has contributed to the low diversity and abundance of tree plants but more herbs and shrubs. Consequently, it contributes to the high plants frequency per hectare in Shasha, Olokemeji and Oke-oni forest reserves. Concerted efforts are therefore needed to implement the applicable suggestions on conservation, collection and uses of edible wild plants to improve the life of people in the study area.