**Abstract**

Land encroachment is severely degrading and destroying many of Nigerian protected area as a result of high population pressure caused by high population growth and immigrations trends. Therefore, this study aimed at assessing human settlement encroachment in Kainji Lake National Park in order to established the extent to which this threat have been upheld and therefore call for park management to seek for proper approaches to deal with it. Data for this study were collected through the administration of questionnaire to the villages adjacent to Borgu sector of Kainji Lake National Park. Seven (7) randomly selected villages, namely Luma, Kuble, Audu Fari, Kali, Malale, Leshegbe and Gada Oli were surveyed. The result indicates gender of respondents where 65.09% of the responses were received from males while 34.91% from females suggesting that responses are the views from both gender parties who are mostly (33.96%) within the age range of 31–40 years and are predominantly farmer (43.42%). 88% of the respondents' indicated that increased need of land for developments are the major causes of encroachment around the park while other human activities such as farming, deforestation and grazing of domesticated animals, by encroaching to protected areas have led into competition over natural resources. It is also established by 92% of the respondents agree that migration of people for livelihood support has led to increased competition between people and wildlife hence, this increase in population has consequently led to encroachment into the park as attested by a whopping 100% of the respondents. Kainji Lake National Park management need to do more in sensitizing the local communities on importance of wildlife conservation as most (54%) locals disagreed to awareness of conservation education and engages in intense vigilance against encroachment into the park land.

**Keywords:** encroachment, human activities, population pressure, protected area, resources

#### **1. Introduction**

Protected areas have long been recognized as the single most important method of conserving wildlife and preserving biological diversity [1]. They protect the fertility and stability of soils, play a key role in watershed management, and are the habitats of countless species of wildlife. Hence, it is important as a result of its significant contribution to economic and social status of their host country. Protected areas are

popularly associated with large areas of 'undisturbed wilderness' [2]. Many of these protected areas including the parks and game reserves especially in the developing countries are affected by degradation of the ecosystem which involves hunting, logging, livestock keeping, cultivation, wildfire and this has led to establishment of conservation programmes for sustainable management of these protected areas [3]. Another view sees protected areas as social spaces; that is, they are socially conceived and preserved [2]. For instance National park concept involves the exclusion of people from wildlife areas apart from visitors and employees concerned with management [4], it also conserve many of the world's habitats and species. Despite the high productivity of National Parks, and provision of many benefits, it has been found that these protected areas natural features have been destroyed everyday as a result of encroachment [5, 6]. Human encroachment, especially in the tropics, is severely degrading and destroying many of these areas [7] as a result of high population pressure caused by high population growth and immigrations trends [3].

Encroachment on public property is defined as:" the existence of any structure or item of any kind under, upon, in, or over the project lands or waters and/or the destruction, injury, defacement, removal or any alteration of public property including natural formations, historical and archeological features, and vegetative growth [8]. It also "denotes an illegal activity as one where the person who encroaches is not deemed to have any legal right to do so" [9]. The above two definitions suggest that encroachment results when there is an unlawful activity/entry on forest (gradually and without permission).

Encroachment in the protected areas is one of the major causes of degradation of ecosystem in many parts of the world [10]. Human encroachment into wildlife areas, which has increased almost exponentially over the past few decades, has usually resulted in the elimination of the larger species, particularly the large mammals (e.g. [4]).

Destruction of wildlife habitats through human encroachment has remained the leading threat to biodiversity. This destruction, taking different forms, for example degradation, fragmentation or outright loss, is a function of the growing human activities prompted mainly by such factors as poverty, demographic factors, land tenure systems, inadequate conservation status, development policies and economic incentives [1].

The park could be subjected to encroachment through physical development which poses problems to sustainable resource utilization [11] and this may be connected to their importance to the livelihoods of local communities, especially indigenous people who live and/or depend on the resources available in the park for their survival [12]. However, the problem of encroachment caused by economic development and other human activities will exert pressure on biodiversity, resulting in the interference in the wildlife management approaches and make it difficult to protect Nigerian National Parks.

Therefore, this study assessed human settlement encroachment in Kainji Lake National Park in order to established the extent to which this threat have been upheld and therefore call for park management to seek for proper approaches to deal with it.
