Fuelwood Gap Theory: Exploring Fuelwood Source Regions in Northern Nigeria’s Drylands

Fuelwood consumption has for a while been assumed to be the ultimate cause of forest degradation, and if not checked could lead to forest disappearance. This is owed to the fact that over 90 per cent of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa is dependent on the resource as a source of energy. Hence, this paper investigates the conformity of the major fuelwood source regions of Northern Nigeria to the Fuelwood Gap Theory. The objectives are; to examine the source regions' vegetation cover and identify the regions' major activities. The methods employed include triangulation of field surveys, Maximum likelihood supervised classification and Post Classification comparison. On average 77 trees were cut down for every 3600m2 of farmland. From the maximum likelihood supervised classification result, six major classes were identified namely: forest, water body, woodland, farmlands, built-up area and bare surface. From the post-classification done, Dukku Forest Reserve lost 132.9km2 of the forest class from 1990 to 2018. For the same period, the forest class in Falgore Game reserve increased by 173.36km2. Lastly, in Rafin Chiyawa Forest Reserve the forest class decreased by 276km2 from 1990 to 2018. The major activities at the sites include agriculture, sand mining, fuelwood collection and rearing of animals. This indicated that the Fuelwood Gap Theory does not hold for the three Forest Reserves. It is recommended that The Fuelwood Gap Theory be modified to look at forest degradation from a fuelwood consumption-agricultural activities nexus.