Federal Republic of Nigeria Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Staple Crop Processing Zones Support Project (scpz)

4.3 Biological Environment

4.3.1 Fauna

The vegetation can be divided into four zones made up of;

1. 
   The flood plain complexes of savannah, which is a mixture of several vegetation types, found on river flood plains;
   
2. 
   Mixed leguminous wooded savannah spread mg from Abugi through Koton-karfe. Itobe, Ajaokuta is characterized by mixed formation of trees, shrubs and grasses;
   
3. 
   Most lowland forest of Savannah mosaic type - this is wooded savannah with Daniella Olivier and oil palms dominating. However, along the river valleys riparian forests are well developed;
   
4. 
   In the rest of the State, particularly South of Idah, is a mixture of vegetation wooded savannah, rain and mangrove forests.
   

The rain forest belt (selva type) covers Dekina, Ofu, Ankpa, Olamaboro, Idah and Bassa local government areas with rich deciduous and occasional stunted trees including palms, Iroko, mahogany, akeeapple and other towering trees. Other LGAs are in the guinea savannah or parkland savannah belt with tall grasses and some trees.

These trees include locust bean, shea butter, oil bean and the isoberlinia trees. The different types of vegetation are, however, not in their natural luxuriant state owing to the careless human use of the forest and the resultant derived deciduous and savannah vegetations.

Most of these grasses are perennial and grow to a height of about 3m. These include Hyparrheniainvolucrata, Andropogon gayanus, Andropogon tectorum, Loudetia flavida, Imperata cylindrica,Laucia spp,Panicum maximum, Ctenium newtonii, Diheteropogon grandiflorus, Rothboliacochinchinesi Schizachyrium sanguineum, Anthephora ampulacea, Pennisetum pedillcelatum,Aristida kerstingii, Pennisetum unisetum, Digitaria horizontalis, and Pennisetum purpurum.

The trees which grow in clusters areup to six meters tall, interspersed with grasses which grow up to about three meters. The differenttypes of plants are, however, not in their natural luxuriant state owing to the careless human use ofthe plant and the resultant deciduous and savanna vegetation.

There are fourforest reserves within the Kogi State SCPZ and ABIR, namely: :

1. 
   Chokochoko Forest Reserve - 13,986 ha
   
2. 
   Oinyi Forest Reserve - 13,120 ha
   
3. 
   Olle Forest Reserve - 9,593 ha
   
4. 
   Bunu Forest Reserve - 51,842 ha
   

These forests reserves cover more or less a contiguous surface area with a few kilometers of savanna grasslands separating them (Fig 4.5). A report on “Nigeria’s path to sustainable development through green economy” concludes that “over 25,000 ha of gazetted forest are being lost to de-reservation annually” (Federal Government of Nigeria 2012:50). The same is true of these four forests which have not been managed or protected for decades and consequently most economic trees have been logged and the reserves opened up for farms etc. Today, the deforestation and degradation of the forest reserves is such that the ground habitat in and outside the forest reserves are identical and cannot be said to meet the criterion of “forests” as a biological category.

In a seasonal trend analysis for the period between 2000-2010 study derived from the forestry monitoring and evaluation coordinating unit (FORMECU) by Adeofun, et al, land use land cover and rainfall were observed to be drivers of vegetation change in Kogi State. The study revealed that conversion to land use types such as built-up-area and agricultural land was attributed to a high population growth rate from 2,147,756m² in 1991 to 3,314,043m² in 2006 (FGEG 2007). Also, Nathaniel (2012) revealed in his study that there was a decrease of about -50.9 % in vegetation cover between 1986 and 2007. This conversion of vegetation into other land use land cover, coupled with climatic variation, has influence on vegetation greening-up and greening-down of the study area.

The ecological problems in the state are not necessarily peculiar to it. Some of these include leaching, erosion and general impoverishment of the soil. These problems are compounded by the annual bush burning of the savannah that further exposes the top soil to more erosion. Floods pose a problem on the flood plains during the rainy season, while aridity is a problem to several areas at short distances from the rivers during the dry season. Much damage is done to land and propertv as a result of these phenomena