Forest Products, Livelihoods and Conservation

Atilade Akanmu Adebisi 117

Garcinia kola is endemic in the humid lowland rainforest vegetation of the

West and Central African subregions. It is found in coastal areas and lowland

plains up to 300 m above sea level with an average of 2,500 mm of rainfall per

annum. The trees are abundant in densely populated areas of natural and

secondary forests where the predominant land use system is tree crop plantation

farming (Aiyelaagbe and Adeola 1993). As well, people residing in or near

forest reserves collect bitter kola fruits, extract and process the seeds and

trade them. Therefore the major places where the commodity is found growing

wild are forest reserves and free areas of the rainforest, or it is either planted

or conserved in on-farm oil palm-cocoa-yam plantations. These two growing

regions will be found in low altitude areas with annual rainfall of 2,000 mm to

2,500 mm, temperature ranges from 32.15°C to 21.4°C and a minimum relative

humidity of 76.34% (Ntamag 1997).

For this particular case study, a camp was established in the J4 area of

Omo Forest Reserve, Ogun State, Nigeria (Figure 1). This area was selected

because the collection and trade of bitter kola is an important contributor to

local household per capita income.

Cultural importance of bitter kola

Bitter kola holds a high position of cultural importance among all the Nigerian

tribes, particularly the Yoruba and Ibo communities. The Yoruba use bitter

kola as an important component of the material used in traditional naming

and marriage ceremonies, while the Ibos use it in their traditional ‘fetish’

(Garcinia kola)

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