Okomu National Park Case Study

The observed trends in land use/land cover could potentially be explained in part by recent trends in ecotourism development, road expansion, and ecosystem management in Okomu National Park. From 2001 to 2016, a lot of siltation as well as water shrinkage had taken place within the lakes of Okomu National Park. Hence, these phenomena possibly due to climate change resulted into the decrease in swampy forest. Muchmore, the reduction in the spatial extent of secondary forest can be largely attributed to the increase in the high forest. The effective ecosystem management within the park brought about an ecological succession thereby followed the assertions of MacCleery (2011) and Long et al. (2014) that feasible measures toward aggressively constructing
However, the area is still porous to human infiltration due to the land use conflict between the host communities and the park authority. At the north western edge of the park, much of the high forest were converted to secondary forest as a result of road expansion and grading by the Okomu Oil Company. The road constituted the boundary between the park and the Oil Company, and a major transport link to the consumers. Moreso, the land cover close to the park boundary and some parts of the protected area experienced tremendous increase in the bareground/built-up areas. Few years ago, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) commenced the road construction between the Udo and Nikorogha towards rural and economic development. The road crossed across the park, thereby caused forest clearing at the onset of the project. As a result of this, a lot of ecosystem along the road were destroyed and converted to bare grounds. Also, Arakhuan lodges and Arakhuan rangers’ post with their surroundings experienced complete bush clearing towards infrastructural development, and maintenance of the existing ecotourism attractions/facilities in recent
Grass and Shrub savanna constituted the largest land cover mass in Pendjari National Park, which followed the assertions of Cheke (2001), Adomou (2005) and Kassa (2008) who opined that there are extensive areas of open grasslands or grass and shrub savanna in the park dominated by Acacia sieberiana, Mitragyna inermis or Terminalia macroptera. The grass and shrub savanna experienced tremendous loss within the time span, likewise, dense forest, open forest/wooded savanna, savanna /meadows of the floodplains, and gallery forest. These losses were evident in their absolute changes, percentage changes and rate of changes. The reduction in their spatial extents can be largely attributed to the increase in the bare soil/built-up areas, amidst other land use/land cover classes. Increased desertification and siltation of lakes within the eco-region, fire management and infrastructural development towards ecotourism and road network maintenance could have been the drivers behind the increment in bare soil/built-up areas. Dreier and Sow (2015) and ELD Initiative and UNEP (2015) confirmed the fact that northern Benin (where the park is situated) was being faced with various environmental challenges in recent times such as desertification and