In situ conservation of wildlife in West Africa

This chapter is on multipurpose forest management with ethnomedicine, agroforestry, and bushmeat production at the Okomu Forest Reserve in Nigeria. Okomu Forest Reserve is situated in the lowland tropical rain forest of Edo State of southwestern Nigeria. It contains some of the richest and relatively undisturbed forest ecosystem in Nigeria. The forest is endowed with unique and rare biodiversity of global significance. The uniqueness of the forest biodiversity attracted the tripartite participatory management of a foremost nongovernmental organization (the Nigerian Conservation Foundation), the state government (the Edo State Government where the forest is domiciled), and the local community. The entire forest is zoned into five clear domains according to the choice and priority of land use classification, and management objectives of each zone are protected by law with the benefits of land use including wildlife conservation accruing to local communities. This chapter gives a list of 98 medicinal plants that have been produced to cure several ailments among the forest dwellers of southwestern Nigeria.