Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) are very important tools for assessing land use and land cover changes. In this study, land use/land cover changes in Shasha Forest Reserve, Osun State, Nigeria were assessed. Landsat TM and Landsat ETM+ imageries taken in 1991 and 2002, respectively were geo-referenced and used to produce maps of the forest reserve to facilitate change detection. Processing of the imageries was preceded by clipping the study area from the satellite image. This was done by first geo-referencing an existing topological map showing the boundary of the forest reserve, and then super-imposing it on the imagery. The boundary of the reserve was carefully digitized and used for clipping the imagery to produce an image map of the forest reserve. After the clipping process, the image map was vectorized by converting it from raster to vector format for further use in the GIS environment. Using supervised image classification procedure, features on the imagery were traced out based on their spectral reflectance to make new themes which were then used in producing the land use/land cover maps. During the ground-truthing exercise, pictures of some striking features were taken for the purpose of loading them on the digital maps through hot-linking. To facilitate change detection, the same classification scheme was used for the 1991 and the 2002 imageries. Differences in the area covered by the different polygons between the two sets of imageries were converted to percentages. The results indicate that there was a drastic increase in settlements (132.13%) and farmland (98.16%) between 1991 and 2002. Within the same period, over 7,000 hectares of the natural forest appeared degraded with varying levels of disturbance. On the other hand, the areas under forest plantation, agroforest and undisturbed natural forest decreased over the period. The implication of these results is that over the years, the population of people residing within the forest reserve has increased and many of them engage in farming, thereby leading to increase in farmland. In addition, logging activities have continued unabated in the forest reserve as shown by the sharp increase in the area of degraded (logged-over) forest within the reserve. The maps produced in this study will serve as planning tools to the Osun State Forestry Department in scheduling reforestation activities for the forest reserve.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development goals that all 193 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015. They include eradicating extreme poverty, reducing child mortality rates, fighting disease epidemics such as AIDS, and developing a global partnership for development. Forest resource management is vital to attainment of these Millennium Development Goals. Forest provides a wide range of benefits and products such as food, fuel, fodder, medicinal plants, and wildlife species. Forest also serves as source of income and also as carbon sink thereby reducing global warming, conserve biodiversity, control both air and water pollution, control erosion and manage our watersheds. The importance of forest resources for livelihood is uncountable. This paper pointed out the need for forest resources management in order to support the attainment of Millennium Development Goals.