THE DYNAMICS OF FUELWOOD PLANTATIONS IN KATSINA EMIRATE 1920 to 2015

Abstract

Fuelwood plantations started in Northern Nigeria during the British colonial period and postcolonial period. Fuelwood plantation was carried out on a small scale run by the Native Authorities to be utilized by the communities surrounding them. The establishment of these type of plantation involved the alienation and demarcation of land that formerly used for other economic activities, such as farming and livestock herding. The overall outcome of these adjustments was to change subsistence farming, pastoralism and human settlements patterns. This paper uses archival, oral and secondary sources to show the dynamics in land use in the studied areas. The paper argues that, fuelwood plantations in both colonial and post-colonial Northern Nigeria, created new forms of land use that could not be sustained. Using Katsina Emirate as a case study to show the impacts of the establishment of these plantations on land use practices by societies surrounding them