GENERAL COMMENTS.
Financing Of the Forestry Sector In Nigeria.
The Federal Government has budgetary provision for Forestry development but has no forest of its own. This provision is for financing forestry projects being executed by the Federal Department of Forestry in the states and supporting State Forestry projects being executed by the State Forestry Departments.
The states themselves have budgetary allocations for forestry development but this are grossly inadequate to carryout meaningful projects and programmes.
On the other hand, the revenue generated from the forests is nothing substantial compared with the requirements for sustainable forestry development.
The Local Government Areas on their part have no specific financial provision for forestry operations. The revenue generated by the LGAs is merely ploughed into their routine programmes.
Wildlife Sector.
The sectoral base for wildlife management has not been static in Nigeria. At a time, the Federal Department of Forestry had as part of its statutory responsibilities the management of wildlife. This role was however transferred to the Department of Environmental Conservation when the Ministry of Environment was created. It is imperative to state that, the National Parks is also involved in wildlife management.
At the state level, the responsibility for wildlife management still lies with the State Forestry Departments. The revenue generated from this subsector is reflected in the column on licenses/permits of Table 3.12.
DETAILED COMMENTS.
1. 1.7.7 Tropical Forests Action Programme (TFAP).
To a large extent, the full participation of the civil society was assured during the NFAP process. The NGOs were members of some working groups while the staff of NCU and SCUs interacted intimately with the local communities during the data collection exercise. Strong emphasis was equally placed on the involvement of the people outside the administration through their participation in meetings, seminars and workshops.
The report approved by NFDC in 1997 is actually the NFAP quoted as FORMECU (1996).
2. 2.2.3 Legislative.
State laws were developed from Regional laws. The Regions (North, East and West) were former administrative units in Nigeria. The protection of wildlife and biodiversity form part of the state laws. The National Parks fall within the jurisdiction of the central government and therefore not included in the state laws.
The absence of an appropriate forest law is prevalent only at the Federal level.
The proposed legislation has made adequate provision for private entrepreneurs as noted in item m.
Forest agreement is the same as concession but the former was used in the proposed legislation.
3. 2.2.4.7 New Policy Tool.
The Federal Department of Forest is bringing along the states to imbibe the new policy tool.
4. 2.4.2 Programmes on account of NFP Process.
The Federal Government has not released funds for the implementation of the blue print on NFPs 2000 - 2003.
5. 2.5.1 Human Resources.
I agree that the mentioned differences between pre and post NFAP are just the result of a trend of events independent of the NFAP formulation.
The threshold date between pre and post NFAP is 1997.
6. 2.6 Adaptability of the NFP.
Top-bottom approach was quoted as one of the negative factors that required modification in formulating NFPs.
7. Table 3.6. The constant figure for pulp and paper for 1990, 2000, and 2010 reflects the inherent deficiency in the method used for the projection. This confirms my worry in paragraph 3 of 3.1.1.
8. Chapter 5.
Points 4, 5 and 6 are still relevant. If those factors were not inhibiting, the NFAP could have been produced much earlier and implementation might commence before the political imbroglio.
