Effects Of Socioeconomic And Environmental Variables On Renewable Resource Degradation In Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Nigeria is faced with many environmental problems. Available data indicate that Nigeria is

losing her renewable natural resources (including arable land, forest, pasture/rangeland and water

resources) beyond sustainable limits. Economic and environmental systems interact in many

important ways and hence the need to understand these interactions and develop effective public

policy. While economic systems derive many invaluable inputs (some commodified, others free)

from environmental systems and processes, economic activity can have negative impacts on the

functional integrity of these natural systems and processes. The dynamic interactions of the

environmental degradation problem with socioeconomic factors are neither well understood in

Nigeria, nor are the implications for the nation’s Transformation Agenda and Vision 20:2020

well appreciated. This study, therefore, explored the inherent dynamic interactions and feedback

between the environment and socioeconomic spheres. The specific objectives were to: (i)

determine the causality of resource degradation and macroeconomic profile, (ii) determine the

causality of resource degradation and social profile, (iii) assess the effects of resource

degradation on macroeconomic profile, (iv) assess the effects of resource degradation on social

profile, and (v) forecast the impact of resource degradation on Nigeria’s socioeconomic profile

and implications for Nigeria’s Vision 20:2020. The study adopted time-series design. Nigeria

was the unit of analysis. Time series secondary data (from 1970 to 2010) from various sources

were utilized for modeling and analysis. A time series environmental degradation index was

constructed using the tool of principal components analysis (PCA). The constructed index (a

synoptic single number) represents the nation’s ecological footprint or bio-capacity. The next

step was the modeling of the index and seven other variables as a dynamic vector error

correction model, given the non-mean reverting nature of the variables, and to capture the

evolution and interdependencies between the variables. Results from the analysis show that the

exploitation of renewable natural resources in Nigeria was highly cointegrated with her socioeconomic

spheres as there were 5-7 cointegrated equations in the vector error correction model

(VECM). A bi-directional or feedback relationship existed between the index of environmental

degradation and Nigeria’s socioeconomic profile. Agricultural prices, population dynamics,

public capital expenditure on agriculture, fertilizer consumption, per capita income, life

expectancy and greenhouse emissions granger-caused the index of degradation (joint p-value =

0.0389), the index of degradation granger-caused (p ≤ 0.05) agricultural prices, expenditure on

agriculture, fertilizer consumption, greenhouse emission, per capita income, migration and life

expectancy. The index of degradation produced significant (95% confidence level of error bands)

positive and sustained effects on Nigeria’s macroeconomic profile (including agricultural prices,

agricultural capital expenditure, fertilizer consumption and climate change over a ten-year

horizon (2011-2020). On the other hand, the effects on Nigeria’s social factors (such as per

capita income, rural population dynamics and life expectancy) by the index of degradation were

significantly (95% confidence level of error bands) negative and sustained over a ten-year

horizon (2011-2020). Following from these results, the study among other things recommends a

more comprehensive holistic and sustainable development path, and strategies and policies that

integrate rural development and renewable natural resources management in order to tackle the

complex, diverse and deeply rooted issues underlying worsening environmental degradation in Nigeria.