Vol. 1, Issue 4, Part A (2019)

Energy is the essential ingredient or tool for socio-economic development and index for prosperity in any state or nation. Nigeria is endowed with a variety of clean energy sources, such as hydropower, geothermal, wind, and solar, but both rural and urban households in Nigeria depend heavily on biomass fuel such as dung, wood fuel and charcoal for their energy needs. This paper assesses commercial woodfuel harvesting in Jema’a Local Government, Kaduna State, Nigeria with a view to providing information for decision making. Data for this study was obtained through the questionnaire, Focus group discussion, in-depth interview, and direct field observation. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Result shows that Poverty, unemployment, seasonality of job, adequacy of food, source of income, increase in human population, availability of wood fuel resources in the area are the factors responsible for increased commercial woodfuel harvesting in the study area. The tree species that are the most preferred ones for commercial woodfuel harvesting in Jema’a local government are Madobiya, Baushe, Kashin awaki, Kafaffago, Marke, Jan yaro and Kujeme. Most of these species are the most preferred ones because of their flammability, conversion of the woodfuel to charcoal after used, low smoke production and easy to resize. It is recommended that clean and alternative sources of energy should be made available to people at affordable rate in every part of the country.