Assessing the Community Leaders' Engagement in Reducing Land Encroachment Activities in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State

The study assesses the community leaders' engagement in reducing land encroachment activities in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design; two research questions guided the study. The population of the study consisted of all 240 registered community development committee (CDC) leaders in the area. Total enumeration 240 CDC leaders was used in the study. The instrument for data collection was a researcher-structured questionnaire titled: Assessing Community Leaders Engagement in Reducing Land Encroachment Activities Questionnaire. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach's Alpha reliability method. Research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation while t-test was used to test the hypotheses. The findings of the study proved that CDC leaders' engagement in promoting transparency and their engagement in conflict mediation enhances land encroachment activities in the Eleme local government area in Rivers State. Also, the null hypotheses were accepted. indicating that there is no significant in their engagement in promoting transparency conflict mediation enhances the reduction of land encroachment activities. It was recommended among others that government should train a group of community members in conflict resolution and mediation techniques. Keywords: Land, encroachment, community engagement, conflict mediation, transparency.