An important component of environmental sustainability is how we can continue
improving human welfare within the limits of the earth’s natural resources. With recent
research showing that carbondioxide levels in the air are at their highest in 650,000 years
and thus an alarming depletion of the ozone layer, the challenge currently facing many
countries is how to respond to the issue of climate change. Steel, reinforced concrete and
timber are the most commonly used structural materials worldwide. However,
carbondioxide emissions from steel and cement production have been found to be the first
and second largest sources of industrial C�� emissions worldwide and this has prompted
the inclination towards timber as a structural material. Timber is decomposable or
biodegradable as well as renewable and its production does not require the use of high
energy fossil fuels as in the production of some other building materials such as steel or
even brick. Nigeria is blessed with several timber species in different wood classes but
despite the environmentally sustainable and obvious advantages of timber, it is being
grossly underutilized as a structural material in Nigeria because there is limited information
on the reliability of timber considering the wide property variability between and even
within, timber species. This paper addresses the need for reliability analysis of various
Nigerian timber species with a view to determining and establishing their structural
strength to encourage the use of the Nigerian Timber as a structural material. The need to
revise the Nigerian Code of Practice for the structural design of Timber is also emphasized
in this pape
