Livelihood impacts of forest carbon protection in the context of Redd+ in Cross River State, Southeast Nigeria

: The rate of landcover change linked to deforestation and forest degradation in tropical environments has continued to surge despite series of forest governance policy instruments over the years. These informed the launch of one of the most important international policies called Re-11 ducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus (REDD+) to combat forest de-12 struction. REDD+ assumes that communities will have increased assets to natural capital which will enhance their livelihood portfolio and mitigate the effects of climate variability and change across biomes. The aim of this study is to ascertain the livelihoods impacts of forest carbon protection within the context of REDD+ in Cross River State, Nigeria. Six forest communities were chosen across three agroecological zones of the State. Anchored on the Sustainable Livelihood Framework, a set of questionnaires were administered to randomly picked households. The results indicate that more than half of the respondents aligned with financial payment and more natural resources as the perceived benefits of carbon protection. More so, a Multinomial logistic regression showed that in-20 come was the main factor that influenced respondent’s support for forest carbon protection. Analy-21 sis of income trends from the ‘big seven’ nontimber forest resources in the region showed increase in Gnetum africanum, Bushmeat, Irvingia gabonensis, Garcinia kola , while carpolobia spp., Randia and rattan cane revealed declining income since inception of REDD+. The recorded increase in house-24 hold income was attributed to a ban in logging. It is recommended that the forest communities should be more heavily involved in the subsequent phases of the project implementation to avoid carbon leakages.

world, ranked 17 th in global greenhouse emission profile [9]. It is believed 87 % of CO2 48 emissions in Nigeria comes from deforestation [10,11]. About 50 % of Nigeria's remaining 49 rainforest is in the Cross River State. However, deforestation accounted for 5 % of forest 50 loss in the State between 2010 and 2015 [12], which was significantly ahead of the annual 51 rate of forest cover loss of 1.32 % for the region between 1991 and 2001 [13]. The increas-52 ing trend in the rate of forest loss in the region is spurred by population growth, agricul-53 tural expansion, rapid urbanization and most recently by foreign direct investment econ-54 omies [3,14,15].

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REDD+ was concluded in 2010 [7]. It should be noted that the CRS before the advent of

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Rainfall in the Cross River State is bimodal with varying durations of sessions across 164 the three agroecological zones. The rainfall gradient is largely influence by relief and near-165 ness to coastal environment. The southern agroecological zone (SAZ) has a monsoon trop-166 ical climate with an annual mean rainfall of 3500 mm which sometimes peaked at 4000 167 mm around the Oban Massif [41]. The climate of the region is within the Tropical Mon-168 soon (Am) classification scheme of Koppen [42]. The mean annual air temperature of the 169 zone averages around 27 0 C with little variation throughout the year, and with humidity 170 between 78% and 91% [43]. In the central agroecological zone (CAZ), mean annual rainfall 171 varies from 2300mm to 3000mm. The zone records mean annual air temperature ranges 172 from 26.9 0 C to 30 0 C and humidity of the zone in most parts of the year is about 68% [41].

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In the northern agroecological zone (NAZ), savanna ecosystem are common with mean 174 annual rainfall of 1120 mm and temperature ranges from 15 to 30 0 C [44]. The zone has  The data for the study were gathered between March and September 2019 using 181 structured interviews and indepth content analysis. Before the administration of the ques-182 tionnaire, one community liaison was picked from each of the sampled communities and 183 trained on the process of data collection in the field. The questionnaire was personally 184 administered to forest dependent communities in Cross River States using a multi-stage 185 sampling frame [45]. The sampling plan involved the stratification of the study area into 186 the three agroecological zones [46]; SAZ, CAZ and NAZ. The second stage was the pur-  The total households per a sampled community was generated with the help of the 193 community liaisons and 10 % of the total household were randomly picked for the admin-194 istration of the questionnaire [48] as shown in Table 1. To obtain questionnaire responses 195 on the day, the researchers waited in the village while it was being filled without interfer-196 ence. Respondents were informed that they were free to withdraw their consent to be in-

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To enhance our understanding of the rationale behind the low-level of participation 270 of community members on REDD+ activities, the socioeconomic variables and level of 271 awareness were subjected to inferential analysis. Results obtained (

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The results in Table 3 also showed that among the independent variables, household 281 income (t = 2.767, p<0.05) and education (t = 4.859, p<0.05) exerted significant influence on 282 REDD+ awareness, while household size and gender did not. The unstandardized regres-283 sion coefficient also showed that education and household income had higher weights 284 (0.246 and 0.196 respectively). It therefore means that education followed by household 285 income are principal factors that influences REDD+ awareness.  Table 4. From the Table, 290 it can be observed that 93.4 % of the sampled population said REDD+ did not provide  More so, Figure 3 shows the perception of the respondents on the effects of REDD+ 299 intervention on income stream from non-timber forest products once community forest

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To understand how carbon benefits were influenced by the respondent's socioeco-342 nomic variables, multinomial logistic regressions were used with results shown in Table   343 6. The result showed significance using a multivariate logistic regression (X 2 = 15.365,  Table 6 indicates that income had Odd ratio greater than 1 implying that it is more probable to predict carbon measurement ben-351 efits.

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It is imperative to note that effective participation of community members in natural 365 resources governance processes, either directly or by dependable representation, brings 366 about shared benefits. More so, participation of local communities in forest carbon pro-367 jects diminishes likely opposition to the project and will most probably enhance the suc-368 cess chances [52,53]. In addition, the holistic involvement of forest dependent communi-  tortions were aim at maintaining land sparing regime [61]. These style of forest govern-392 ance led to reduced income among forest dependent communities [33] and exacerbated 393 poor land use practices with attendant consiquences of more carbon emissions [32].

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The aim of REDD+ is to ensure forest carbon protection and enhance social safe-426 guards [35]. These are some of REDD+'s pathways to carbon emissions reduction [67,26].

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The non-carbon (social safeguards) aspects of REDD+ is meant to cushion any negative

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The researchers investigated the governance dynamics of REDD+ project in relation 551 to the livelihood benefits of carbon measurements and protection in six purposively sam-552 pled forest dependent communities in Cross River State, southeast Nigeria. The results 553 from the study indicated that most of the sampled respondents were aware of REDD+ 554 project. However, they were not involved in the design and implementation processes.

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The study further observed that only the community chiefs were invited to REDD+ meet-556 ings. However, their participation in the meeting was restricted to listening to the planned 557 activities of government with regards to REDD+ project. In addition, the study used the 558 logit regression model to establish the socioeconomic variables that determined sampled

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The results of logit regression analysis of the socioeconomic determinants of forest carbon 570 measurements and protection benefits revealed that income, household size, and gender 571 of the sampled population were able to predict forest carbon measurement benefits. Spe-572 cifically, education and income were significant predictors of carbon measurement and 573 protection benefits in the study area.

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Another fundamental sector that is negatively impacted by the implementation of 575 REDD+ in the area is access to farmlands for food and cash crops cultivation. Almost every 576 respondent complained about the reduction in access to land for farming. The government 577 in recognition of the effects of deforestation and forest degradation and in keeping with 578 requirements to secure funding from international donor agencies set up a security outfit 579 (Green Sheriff) to guard the forest. The enforcement of forest protection is reducing the 580 rate at which closed forest is opened for farming. However, those who succeeds in culti-581 vating in the forest may not harvest the crops as there are likely to be destroyed by the 582 forest guards. This has affected the food and cash crops turnover rate in the study area 583 since the inception of REDD+.

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In view of the results, it is recommended that subsequent activities of REDD+ in the 585 study area should be conducted in ways that meets international best practices as outlined 586 by the sponsoring agencies. This will mean the holistic involvement of the population that 587 may be directly or indirectly impacted by REDD+ project activities. The activities of REDD 588 project should be seen to be creating opportunities that will enhance the standard of living 589 of the people rather than accentuating poverty. Redd+ handlers should create avenues 590 that increased the population access to food security, increased income from farm and off