Participatory Approach to Extension Education: A tool for Achieving Sustainability of Forest in Yobe State, Nigeria

Abstract

Despite understanding the contributions of forest extension workers in
literature of management of forests in Sub-Saharan Africa, the forests in
Northern Nigeria continue to deteriorate in size and composition, and
literatures on suitable methods of forest extension and education is
limited. The goal of this study is to examine the characteristics of the
methods of forest extension and education in Yobe. The specific objectives
are to identify the characteristics of the methods of forest extension and
education and assess the level of acceptability of the methods used in the
transmission of information on sustainable forest management by forest
extension and education workers in Yobe, Nigeria. Data were collected
from 150 purposively selected respondents across the three randomly
selected local government councils in Yobe, Nigeria. The data were
analyzed using descriptive statistics, a general linear mixed model, and
thematic analysis. The social (local leader) method passing information
on sustainable forest management to forests beneficiaries was found to be
the most acceptable method due to its characteristic reliability and
fairness. The result from the regression however showed that the social
(local leaders) approach and the community approach as the predictors
identified within the model that had the lowest Akaike’s Information
Criterion value of 157.8 and adjusted R2 value of 26.8%. The adjusted R-
squared value indicated that 73.2% of the people’s opinions could not be
explained by this model. The study recommends policy measures aimed at
inclusion of local leaders in the sustainable management of forests.