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.
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