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With the increasing consciousness of the value of wetland ecological and environmental functions and its fast rate of decline in the size of this important and rich ecosystem globally, the Niger Delta ecosystem has been reported to be undergoing tremendous change, hence the need for this research, to identify the challenges and proffer solutions. This study focuses on ascertaining if a change has occurred in the Upper Orashi Forest Reserved wetland, to know and evaluate the policies used in managing the wetland in the region and Nigeria. To ascertain the wetland change, land cover change detection was carried out using Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing to produce paradigm or data to detect change occurrence in the wetland area. Supervised classification of land use and land cover change was carried out using LANDSAT data from 2002, 2008, and 2019. Thereafter, the land cover transition was mapped for the period 2002 to 2019 and this was computed for the net land cover change for the period of study. The site was classified into three different classes and each class was analyzed using the land use and land cover change model formula. The result from this part shows that there is a consistent decrease in the wetland area for the period under review and in the other two identified classes, some interchangeable compositions were observed for the period of study. To validate this result, the opinion of experts and the host community is needed. Two sets of questionnaires were designed for experts and local community dwellers to sample their opinion in relation to the wetland and its management. The information collected was analyzed using Microsoft excel and the result shows that changes have occurred in the wetland of Upper Orashi Forest (decrease in size and other challenging issues with respect to policies and regulations). This study has identified critical challenging issues facing wetlands in the region or driving factors of wetland loss in the study area. Thereafter making recommendations that will help address these issues to actualize environmental sustainability and sustainable wetland in the region and Nigeria at large.
Wetlands have gained tremendous importance since the 1970s, both in scientific discussion and in government policy discourse. The Ramsar Convention provided some clarity in definitions of wetlands and their natural and social significance. However, the current scientific understanding of wetlands was constructed in the centers of knowledge production in the West. One of the consequences has been that local knowledge of wetlands has been obscured or ignored altogether. This research uses methods of historical archaeology, ethnography, and archival work to explore the Anlo's local knowledge of wetlands in Ghana. Anlo local knowledge includes unique forms of wetland ownership arrangements, appropriate management approaches, and so-called atsidza are used as epistemic tools. Bryan Norton's conceptual framework of adaptive management gives an important role to local experimentation and is therefore seen as a key tool for sustainable management. Adaptive management is understood as anlo-style consensus-building management to appropriately incorporate local knowledge and western science into wetland management. The concept of adaptive management is modified accordingly to integrate postcolonial studies of knowledge production and thus can also contribute to the critical analysis of the integration of local knowledge, which has tended to be underestimated or even ignored in postcolonial theories.