**3.2. Structured interviews**

Structured interviews were held with officials of the ten council forest to determine (i) the socioeconomic potentials of these forests particularly in terms of their contribution to employment at the local level and income generated from these forests through the sale of timber and nontimber forest products (NTFPs), and (ii) the threats, difficulties or constraints that these forests are currently facing particularly in terms of bush fire, illegal logging, illegal hunting, management conflicts, nonrespect of contracts by loggers, high costs of exploitation, abusive exploitation of nontimber forest products, and absence of public participation in forest management decision-making process.
