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In recent years, the densely populated region around the burgeoning city of Kano in northern Nigeria has been the focus of much academic enquiry into the links between vegetation modification and fuelwood production and consumption. While many scholars have praised the socio-economic and ecological sustainability of Kano's rural–urban interface, arguing that indigenous agro-forestry systems will continue to resist urban fuelwood pressures for many years to come, other less optimistic observers have warned that exposure to a rapidly changing world economy is challenging traditional resource management systems like never before. Focusing on the case of Kano and its resource hinterlands, recent field-based evidence presented in this paper suggests that the latter supposition may be gaining increasing currency. In peri-urban regions, the rising prices of kerosene and other petroleum-based domestic …