How to earn a living from protecting the forest

Warm greetings to the steem world. Today I’m so happy after taking an adventure to the forest. I discovered a lot of its potentials for its income generating activity and livelihood and will love to share with you all today.

Forest for tourism and leisure.

A lot of people in the third world countries like Cameroon depends on the forest to make a living. This is because they all have have their food, fuel, building material and medicinal herbs form the forest. A good number of people secure their income from the sells of forest resources like wood of gain employment to logging companies where they now have a source of income to take care of their families.

The forest does not only give it resources like fuel and timber but it also have a direct link to the livelihood by providing soil nutrients to the crops we plant and animals we keep. The forest helps in limiting was away soil by rain, pollinate crops and also provide us with the production of oxygen and it’s positive impact on reducing CO2 from the atmosphere which is a green house gas.

Forest for Carbon sink.

Despite the benefits as we have seen, deforestation for agricultural land use and forest fires have destroyed and are reducing the contributions the forest provide for the people’s livelihood. Cutting down of trees help in the accumulation of CO2 gas in the atmosphere and the disappearance of forest resources use for food as well as medicinal plants thus increasing diseases like malaria and yellow fever to the people. The over exploitation have led to the reduction and disappearance of forest resources leading to a reduction on income generating activities for livelihood.

I noticed that when we turn to lost access to the forest by encouraging business farming and ranches or allowing mining companies to our land, the income we generate from the forest resource and our environment is as well in danger. Competition from foreign markets on forest products have therefore forces our small forest exploiters to increase their timber exploitation thus reducing the forest value and the chances of sustainable exploitation for livelihood.

To help our communities protect the forest, government, community stakeholders and policy makers should put options so as to protect and preserve forest resources that can help to improve the livelihood of the people. This can be possible if we escape from policies that help to increase forest destruction. We need to encourage conservation efforts so that there should be access resource available. Government need to look into problems that can drive away people from the forest to limit over exploitation and we should encourage environmental education on the importance of the forest.
Thanks for finding time to read.