Evaluation of Cattle Menace on Forest Plantations in South-East Nigeria: A Case Study of Ohaji/Egbema Local Government Area of Imo State

— This study was carried out to evaluate cattle menace on forest plantations in Ohaji/ Egbema Local Government Area of Imo State, South-East Nigeria. Data were collected using well structured questionnaires to elicit information from respondents in the study area. One hundred and twenty (120) respondents were randomly selected from a list 1200 foresters/farmers obtained from the different village leaders in the community. Data gotten were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as means, frequency distribution and percentages and likert-type scale. The study showed that 85.8% of the respondents were full time farmers. Others are traders (7.5%), civil servants (6.7%) though farming is their part time jobs. The study further showed that breadfruit (20%), oil bean (50%), bamboo (30,8%) and palm tree (50%) plantations, were the major plantations in the study area. Likert scale analysis indicated that chopping off of leaves (3.5), chopping off of the growing stems (3.5), instant death (3.0), debranching (3.3), destruction of young shoots (3.3), trampling on food crops (3.4), trampling on tender seedlings and young trees (3.4), soil compaction (2.7), are the major effects of cattle menace on forest plantations. Furthermore, the likert scale analysis indicated that demarcation of cattle route (3.0), use of resistant varieties (3.0), establishing of grazing reserves (2.7), are the major strategies identified towards resolving cattle menace in the study area. This study helps to increase awareness among academicians, farmers, governments and other critical stakeholders on the need to take urgent steps by putting necessary measures in place to curtain and checkmate the menace caused by the uncontrolled and reckless grazing by herders in South-East Nigeria