Forestry Education In Nigeria

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Forestry education in Nigeria has added much impact in the country, most especially to the rural people and natural environment. The growing prominence of conserving biodiversity, arresting desertification, conserving soils, sequestering carbon, improving water quality and quantity and providing bio-energy raises the premium on forest resources (Temu et al 2008). It is expected that for any sustainable development to be achieved by any nation, the educational sector (most especially the Higher Education) must play a significant and critical role. This sector is expected to build up people’s knowledge. In Nigeria, on how to maintain and utilize the forest and its resources at the university level, more than twenty offers

In Nigeria and many (if not all) sub-Sahara African (SSA) countries, the dependence of the majority of the population on agricultural and renewable natural resources (RNR) for livelihood and sustenance is substantial especially in the rural areas where large proportion of the population of the inhabitants of this region resides. Coincidentally, most of the region’s poor people live in these rural areas and their number is roughly twice that of the urban poor (Canagarajah 1998; Popoola and Akinwumi 2001). This prevalent situation in many of these SSA countries thus, gives credence to the assertion that neither lack nor availability of RNR determines the poverty status of any country but lack of appropriate and adequate human resources to develop and make use of science and technology in adding value to these RNR and also to attract investments. This scenario thus, constitutes part of the imperatives for sustained research and education in agriculture, forestry, other RNR management and related discipline in Africa if the objectives of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially tackling poverty and hunger, are to be achieved in this part of the world. Bada and Verinumbe (2005) noted that forest exploitation is as old as human habitation in

Remote sensing refers to the acquisition of information about an object or phenomena without making physical contact with the object (Reddy, 2001). In modern usage remote sensing can be refer to the use of area sensor technology to detect and classify object on earth (Both on the surface, in the atmosphere and Oceans). It is the acquisition of data through which a sensor is mounted on platforms located at a distance from the target in other to derive information about an object or material (target). This is still by far the most accurate and detailed way of