Alternative livelihood programs to promote sustainable resources use in Afi, Mbe and Okwango Forests in Cross River State, Nigeria

Poor people in rural areas of developing countries are often highly dependent on forest biodiversity to meet their day-to-day livelihood needs because protein from forest wildlife is crucial to rural food security and livelihoods across the tropics. The harvest of animals and reliance of poor, rural communities on forest resources has resulted in destructive gathering practices that directly degrade forest ecosystems; a practice which is largely unsustainable, hence there is a need for alternative livelihoods program in such communities. Several efforts in the past have applied alternative livelihoods programs with little or no success. The study aims to investigate the contributions of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS); a nongovernmental organization with the mission to save wildlife and wild places across the globe, in engendering alternative livelihoods program in selected communities in the forested zone in Cross River State, Nigeria. The study design is observational and socio-economic in nature. The sample frame for the study entails detailed appraisal of the success of the WCS alternative livelihoods program in Afi, Mbe and Okwango. Non-probabilistic Snowball sampling is being used; this method will help to identify trained and untrained hunters. The sample size for the study comprises one hundred and seventy four (174) respondents derived from four (4) groups of actors of the target population: Hunters trained by WCS (57), Project Managers (3), Rangers and Eco guards (15) and Hunters not trained by WCS (102). We compare the differences and associations between respondent categories in terms of livelihood strategies and outcomes using T-test statistics and qualitative methods.