Accepted 14^th October, 2019.

The study examined Women access to forest extension services and compliance to forest laws in Lere Local Government Area of Kaduna State. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used to collect primary data with the aid of structured questionnaire from 100 respondents across five (5) districts. Collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency distribution, percentages, scores and ranks. The result of socio-economic characteristics shows that largest age group was those 31-50 years (53%), married (86%) and those with informal education (53%). Result of respondent’s access to forest extension services reveal that the respondent had no access to forest extension services (0%) however; the women were generally involved in informal environmental conservation practices except in the area of replacing cut down trees (28%) which had low participation. Result of the respondent’s compliance to the forest laws revealed the overall score of 0.9 in favour of those never complying across all listed items. The result of the respondent’s knowledge of existing forestry laws shows that they had poor knowledge about the laws with none of the respondent ever having knowledge of endangered species. The result of identified constraints militating against the respondent’s compliance to forest laws revealed that Poor Access to forest extension services ranked 1^st while None Provision of Seedlings for Forest Regeneration rank least 6^th. It is therefore recommended that environmentalist ensure alternative cooking energy sources are given to rural women and forest extension services be focused in the rural area particularly targeting women folks to bridge the identified knowledge gaps.

Keywords: Women, Forest, Extension, Compliance, Laws and Services.