This study investigated the dynamics and socioeconomic drivers of illegal hunting of wildlife animal commonly called bushmeat in Oba Hills Forest Reserve (OHFR) in Southwest Nigeria. Two hundred and thirty-four households in 8 host communities were subjected to direct household survey using a multi-stage sampling technique. The results revealed that mainly young and middle-aged men engaged in group and seasonal bushmeat hunting, mostly during the dry season. Also, the scale of daily illegal bushmeat hunting is high in the protected area. Non-selective hunting has increased over the last five years with traditional means of hunting still prominent during the hunting expedition. Thus, the socioeconomic drivers (age, ethnicity and household size) had a strong relationship with illegal bushmeat hunting, and their odds ratio ranged between 2.11 and 3.73. Failure to provide stakes for the host communities’ inhabitants and weak penal system influenced illegal bushmeat hunting in OHFR. We conclude that the aforementioned factors need to be addressed for illegal bushmeat hunting to be tackled effectively. However, in the absence of political and economic stability, controlling illegal bushmeat hunting will remain extremely difficult and the future of wildlife conservation will remain bleak. Keywords: Protected area, bushmeat hunting, conservation, seasonal employment

Globally, the Covid-19 pandemic affected the environment, placing a strain on the economy and all parts of human society. The effects of Covid-19 are inevitable, as there is a reduction in human pressures on the natural ecosystem because of the lockdown of social and economic activities. Ecosystem integrity (in terms of species diversity, endemism, and threats) in African countries with global hotspots for biodiversity conservation threatened. This paper provides a snapshot of the quickly growing situation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown and predicts events during normality. At present, essential conservation work (protected area/national park staff still patrol and guard vulnerable species and landscapes) is still ongoing across the globe with the accruing positive effects of the pandemic—reduced air/water pollution, short-term disruption in wildlife trafficking and ecosystem restoration. Despite this, prevailing problems such as indiscriminate exploitation of wildlife resources, tourism revenue loss, staff absenteeism/poor performance, increased human dependence on natural resources, disruptions of field/research work, and species monitoring would persist. The Covid-19 pandemic will affect conservation program funding in most African countries. Our world is changing, and the conservation community must be ready to respond appropriately.

Human-wildlife conflict remains a major challenge in wildlife conservation. This study explored the occurrence of human-wildlife conflict and its impact on the subsistence of rural communities’ adjoining Okomu National Park (ONP), Edo State, Nigeria. A semi-structured questionnaire (for villagers and law enforcement staff of Okomu National Park) and focus group discussion were employed to establish the occurrence and impact of human-wildlife conflict in ONP from January to April 2019. A total of 5 villages were purposively sampled of which 160 villagers, 70 rangers and 3 focused groups (comprising 7 individuals per group) were surveyed. The results revealed that Monkey (Cercopithecus erythrogaster), Buffalo (Syneruscafer), Elephant (Loxodontacylotis), Duikers (Philatombamaxwelli), and Porcupine (Histrixcristata)causes significant problem (χ2 =102.28, P= 0.000; χ2=10.592, P=0.000; χ2=15.454, P= 0.001; χ2= 10.213, P= 0.001; χ2=27.815, P= 0.007 respectively). Also, the occurrence of human-wildlife conflict was higher in villages within 2km radius to park boundary. The livelihood of villagers was negatively affected as they lose their crops to wild animals with no intervention from the park authorities. Management of conservation areas should ensure clear boundary demarcation to reduce the rate of encroachment into the park. Besides, management strategies that aid in the preservation of ecological integrity of the site and human well-being should be taken into account. Improved conservation education and compensation for the loss incurred to crop-raiding should be designed and implemented.

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This paper investigated the rule breaking conduct in a Nigerian protected forest reserve area in order to exploit natural resources using Randomized Response Technique (RRT) for data collection. Evident from this study show a higher proportion of the residents surrounding Oba Hills Forest Reserve, Nigeria illegally poach, encroach to farm, extract timber, gather firewood and graze their domestic animals in the conservation area. With the high level of noncompliance to the conservation rules in this study, there is a need for the government and conservation managers to identify and harness social norms that encourage compliance, as well as increasing probabilities of detection and stricter law enforcement on those that flout the conservation rules.

This study determined the density and diversity of water and terrestrial dependent avian species in man-made Putrajaya wetlands, Peninsular Malaysia using the distant point count techniques. A total sum of 36,544 bird’s individuals (25water bird and 75 terrestrial bird species) was identified from November 2016 to July 2018. The overall bird’s density is 1.17 ± 0.04 birds’ ha−1 at 95.00% confidence limit. The terrestrial bird species (TBS) had a higher density (1.35 ± 0.04 birds’ ha−1), while the water bird species (WBS) had a lower density (0.98 ± 0.16 birds’ ha−1). For WBS, Nycticorax nycticorax and Casmero diusalbus recorded the highest (5.31 ± 3.27 birds’ ha1) and least (0.13 ± 0.15 birds’ ha−1) densities respectively. Also, Columba livia and Arachnothera flavigaster recorded the highest (7.15 ± 1.77 birds’ ha−1) and least (0.07±0.02 birds’ ha−1) densities respectively in TBS. The TBS had higher Shannon– Wiener species diversity index (N1 = 5.67), Margalef’s species richness index (R1 = 15.06) and Pielou’s J species evenness index (E = 1.29) in contrast to the WBS (N1 = 3.71; R1 = 4.58 and E = 1.18). The study revealed the potentials of the man-made Putrajaya wetlands to harbour diverse avian species. This implied the needs to conserve this enclave in order to increase the population, perpetuity and sustainability of the avian species.

This paper summarises the current state of knowledge on the landscape of protected areas in Nigeria and elucidates on the status, drivers, effects and solutions to host communities’ dependence on the protected areas towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 15.9 and Aichi Biodiversity Target 11 in Nigeria. The present land coverage (15.15%) of Nigeria’s protected areas is highly degraded and far away from the target 4 of the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (2016 – 2020). This is connected to the fact that protected areas constitute the largest food base for host communities’ survival in Nigeria. Even, despite the rural-urban drift in search of a white-collar job, a larger percentage of Nigeria’s populations are still situated in the rural areas. The participation of the local communities in biodiversity conservation, their wellbeing, culture and livelihood have always been a subject of interest to the stakeholders (local communities, park management, and conservationist) in protected area management due to the role in the sustainability of forest resources. However, three drivers of host communities’ dependence on protected areas in Nigeria were identified – socio-cultural, economic and institutional drivers. The option of human displacement from the protected areas had not yielded any positive result over the years. In conclusion, buffer zone policies have to be formulated and inculcated by affected protected areas authorities into their management framework. Also, adoption of community-based participatory forest management, initiation of forest enrichment programmes in degraded protected areas and harvesting of Non-timber Forest Products (NTFPs) should be encouraged to play diverse contributory roles in the improvement of rural livelihoods.

This study assessed the conservation status and habitat preference of Common warthog in Old Oyo National Park, Nigeria using direct sighting and line transect method. The abundance estimate and encounter rate of common Warthog in the study area from 2018-2019 showed that year 2018 recorded 213 individuals at an encounter rate of 0.38/km while year 2019 recorded 184 individuals at an encounter rate of 0.32/km while the mean abundance estimate of common Warthog are 4.65±0.64 and 1.71±0.48 which represents 156 and 58 individuals at encounter rate of 0.55/km and 0.20/km in the wet season and dry season of year 2018 compared to year 2019 with average abundance estimate value of 4.00±0.85 and 1.41±0.61 which represents 135 and 48 individuals at an encounter rate of 0.47/km and 0.17/km for wet and dry season respectively. The mean age structure and sex ratio of the observed warthog population during dry and wet seasons revealed that juveniles had highest mean of age structures among the populations observed across the seasons. The habitat preference of common warthog revealed that they are mostly found in mixed woodland and open savanna with 112 observation and the lowest was recorded in the outcrop vegetation and open savanna with 21 individuals.in the wet season. During the dry season, mixed woodland/open savanna and Riparian grassland had the highest sightings of 45 and 33 individuals each. The outcrop vegetation/open savanna had the lowest observation of 1 individuals only. The study also recommends that more aspect of the ecology of the animal should be studied in details and emphasis should be placed on the habitat requirements. Keywords: Conservation, Estimate, Status, Warthog