Article Details

Although forest has economic significance to man and other living organisms, it remains one of the resources which faces many problems like deforestation for building settlement, construction of transport system, agriculture and burning of trees, leading to the disappearance of some valuable tree species. Therefore, this paper aims at determining the influence of forest settlers on; economic and social benefits relating to wood production, barriers connected to sustainable wood production and other forest products and forest management practices. Descriptive survey research design was used and data were obtained using a structured questionnaire from the sample of one hundred and four forest settlers in Lagos and Ogun states. The collected data were analysed using mean, standard deviation and independent samples t-test to test hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that forest increases national income due to the export of wood and other forest products which enable the government at all levels to run the activities and economic development smoothly. There is no significant difference between the mean responses of foresters and inhabitants regarding; the economic and social benefits relating to wood production in context of sustainable forestry; the barriers connected to sustainable wood production and other forest products and the forest management practices that can be used to sustain wood production and other activities. Based on the findings, it was concluded that management practices should be reinforced by effective policy to meet projected wood product needs without deforestation; and awareness should be made by the forest management to educate consumers on how to conserve the forests.