A Systems Dynamics Model of Deforestation-Livelihoods-Governance Feedbacks in Southwestern Nigerian Forest Landscapes

The coupled dynamics of deforestation, livelihood strategies, and forest governance in southwestern Nigeria exhibit non-linear feedback relationships that linear policy models consistently fail to capture, contributing to the persistence of deforestation despite substantial institutional investment in conventional interventions. This study develops and validates a systems dynamics model of deforestation-livelihoods-governance feedbacks in the forest landscapes of Ondo, Ekiti, and Osun States, with the objective of identifying leverage points for durable policy interventions. Model structure was developed through group model building workshops involving 68 stakeholders including farmers, forestry officials, timber traders, and community leaders. Model parameters were estimated from a combination of published empirical studies, household survey data collected from 300 forest-adjacent households, and historical time series of forest cover and institutional data from 2005 to 2023. Validation used behaviour reproduction tests, extreme conditions tests, and partial model testing protocols. Policy experiments simulated the dynamic consequences of twelve intervention combinations over a twenty-five-year horizon. Results identify a dominant reinforcing feedback loop linking livelihood stress, agricultural encroachment, reduced forest governance capacity through revenue loss, and further deforestation, which conventional enforcement-only interventions temporarily disrupt but fail to counteract at the system level. Simulations identify three high-leverage intervention combinations: community revenue sharing combined with tenure formalisation, agroforestry adoption at scale combined with market price support, and nested governance with formal cross-scale coordination. The study provides a dynamic simulation tool for forest policy design accessible to state forestry planners and offers theoretical contributions to feedback-based governance theory. Keywords: systems dynamics, deforestation feedbacks, forest governance, leverage points, southwestern Nigeria