By Ochefa
The global forest sector employs about 42 million people, according to a new study by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Germany’s Thünen Institute of Forestry.
For Nigeria, the significance of the figure is not simply that forests create jobs. It is that the country may be capturing only a fraction of the economic value generated by the resources, businesses and livelihoods connected to its forests.
At a time when Nigeria needs to create jobs for a rapidly growing working-age population, reduce dependence on imported manufactured goods and find new sources of non-oil economic growth, the forest economy presents an opportunity that remains largely underdeveloped.
The opportunity stretches from commercial forestry and timber processing to furniture, paper and packaging, construction materials, charcoal and biomass, medicinal plants, fruits, nuts, honey and other non-timber forest products.
The problem is that much of this activity remains informal, poorly measured and characterised by low levels of processing.
FAO said previous global estimates of forest-sector employment have been constrained by fragmented data and incomplete country coverage, making it difficult to establish a complete picture of who works in the sector.
” A stronger domestic forestry and wood-processing industry could link plantation operators and sustainably managed forests with sawmills, furniture manufacturers, builders and packaging companies.”
“Until now, however, fragmented data and incomplete country coverage have left significant gaps in the global picture – and no breakdown by gender,” FAO said.
That data problem is particularly relevant to Nigeria.
The jobs are already there—but largely invisible
Nigeria does not need to create a forest economy from scratch. Millions of people already earn some form of income from activities connected to forests and trees.
The more important question is how to turn these largely informal livelihoods into higher-productivity businesses and formal value chains.
Consider the furniture industry.
Nigeria has a large and growing market for furniture, yet domestic manufacturers face challenges ranging from inconsistent access to quality timber and other inputs to high production costs and competition from imported products.
A stronger domestic forestry and wood-processing industry could link plantation operators and sustainably managed forests with sawmills, furniture manufacturers, builders and packaging companies.
Instead of selling logs or minimally processed timber, more of the value could be retained locally through kiln-drying, engineered wood, furniture production, flooring, doors, roofing components and other finished products.
That creates a different economic proposition: one forest resource supporting several layers of businesses rather than one transaction at the point of harvest.
South-East, South-South and other forest economies
The opportunity is not confined to one part of the country.
Nigeria’s forest and tree-based economies intersect with agricultural and commercial activity across several regions, particularly in the South-East and South-South, where forest resources, plantations, wood processing and large consumer markets can support interconnected value chains.
In the Middle Belt and other parts of the country, agroforestry can provide another route to combining agricultural production with tree cultivation, potentially giving farmers additional sources of income while improving soil and environmental resilience.
The commercial opportunity also extends beyond timber.
Non-wood forest products—including honey, medicinal plants, fruits, nuts, spices, fibres and other plant-based products—can support processing and packaging businesses if producers have access to finance, technology and reliable markets.
For rural communities, that distinction matters.
A farmer or forest-dependent household selling an unprocessed product at the farm gate captures only a small part of its potential value. Processing, branding, packaging, certification and distribution can generate additional income and employment closer to the communities where the resources originate.
Nigeria’s import bill creates another opportunity
The forest economy also intersects with Nigeria’s industrialisation challenge.
Wood is an input into construction, furniture, packaging and a range of manufacturing activities.
Paper and packaging products are similarly important to retail, food processing, e-commerce and consumer goods.
Developing competitive domestic supply chains could therefore support industries beyond forestry itself.
The opportunity is not to stop all imports. Rather, it is to identify products that Nigeria can competitively manufacture using sustainably sourced domestic raw materials and then build the infrastructure required to do so at scale.
This is where forestry policy becomes industrial policy.
If Nigeria can develop reliable supplies of legally sourced timber, efficient processing facilities, affordable financing and consistent standards, private investment could move further down the value chain.
That would potentially create more jobs than simply increasing raw timber production.
