Abstract

Reforestation, put simply, is the process of restocking the forest for economic purposes. Every year, Nigeria loses about 3500 – 4000 square kilometre of land to deforestation which calls for an urgent attention. This research paper is an application of our earlier research on the effect of deforestation in Nigeria to include reforestation as a mitigation process. The result of the earlier researches shows that if nothing is done to stop or control deforestation, Nigeria will loss her entire land area in about 1120 years. However, the result of this research shows that if trees are planted (Reforestation) to cover about 7559 (10%) of land lost due to deforestation in a period of 20 years (that is 377.95 𝑘𝑚 2 each year) and the trees are maintained, it will take about 60 years to forestall or stop the long term effect of deforestation in Nigeria. Based on the results, the following recommendations are made: The Federal, States and Local Governments in collaboration with relevant forest agencies should carry out regular reforestation exercises to replace extracted tree species in the forests, forest areas which are known to be sensitive to erosion, around slopes and stream edges should be considered for zero or light logging only.