Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Increasing Illegal Livestock Grazing over Three Decades at Moyowosi Kigosi Game Reserve, Tanzania

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors seek to quantify and map illegal grazing inside the reserve boundaries and document changes over time.   They use aerial censuses, ranger reports, and extensive village resident interviews.  This is worthwhile information that is difficult to obtain.  I feel that just a little refinement is needed to be ready to publish.

The text is a bit repetitive and could be tightened up. Figure 1 is blurry, and would benefit from more labels of boundaries/objects that people not familiar with the area can place (e.g. oceans, national boundaries, roads, rivers, other?).    It is not clear later why there is so much illegal grazing at the central boundary between the two sections of the reserve—is there a road there, or a river, or how are herds and herders able to penetrate so far within the total park boundary?

Figure 2 has some parts covered up, and 2D has two different drawing styles; the southeast and most of the western incidences appear to be hand drawn, don’t quite match, and should be formalized somehow.  I recognize that this may be a challenge.

It may make sense to combine the 2017 – 2019 data into a time ‘category’ like the earlier ones; I’m not certain that making annual comparisons for the ranger reports while examining longer-term, multi-year trends for the aerial census information is necessary.  However, this is a not a big deal if left as is.

The authors frequently refer to ‘hotspots’ of illegal grazing, but the picture they show is of the entire park boundary and interior divisions being invaded.    

Author Response

Thank you very much for your valuable contributions in our article.

Kind regards

Nyangabo Violet Musika (On behalf of other authors)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript deals with spatio - temporal patterns of illegal livestock grazing within PAs in Tanzania. Despite its significance, extensive revision should be take place. Below, specific and general comments are presented. If authors follow these comments, I think, at least in my opinion, that this manuscript will be much improved.

Abstract:

You should define boundary better. Is it the boundary of the country, the reserve, the districts etc. The same should be done in Material and Methods section (study area).

Introduction:

L35 – “annual increase” this should be an average – for how long?

L37 – Delete parenthesis. You should also correct similar editing editors throughout the text.

L39 – Correct Pas.

L45 – Delete space – There are many similar errors throughout the text.

L46 – Please provide the time period for the average (5% annually)

L47 – Replace “country’s” with “Tanzania’s”.

L51 – Add “by the herders” after “predators”.

L53-54 – Delete “have”.

L60 – Add “that” after “benefit”.

L62-63 – Replace “limited resources for anti-poaching” with “limited anti-poaching efforts”.

L64-66 – Please rewrite mentioning what are these illegal activities.
L81-88 – Predictions should be briefly explained providing citations, if any. Why do you expect these results?

Materials and Methods:

L102 – Replace “like” with “such as”.

L104-105 – Add “the” before the names of animal species.

L105 – Add “type” or “community” after “vegetation”.

L107 – Why citation is provided in the same parenthesis with the latin name? Is this citation mention only the latter species? Please make a correction accordingly.

L108 – Add “,” after “countries”.

L158 – Maybe very far is more appropriate than “furthest”. This concerns all the text.

L159 – Delete paragraph.

Results:

L192 – Fig. 3A in bold – Delete parenthesis.

L198 – Please keep uniformity in spaces between numbers and symbol of percentages throughout the text.

L199-200 – This belongs to Discussion section.

Discussion:

L227-229 – This is a result – Please rephrase.

L229-230 – “farmers feeding their livestock” means farmers provide supplementary food. Perhaps, you want to state that livestock graze…

L230 – “preferred” is not a good term, maybe “tended” is better.

L232-234 - This is a result – Please rephrase.

L234-236 – “revealed” is a strong word – use probably, may, perhaps, etc.

L235-236 – “took advantage” – You didn’t check that – It’s a speculation.

L239 – Replace “years” with “time periods”.

L242 – In the previous sentence you mentioned one theory and one law – Please correct.

L247-248 – You should mention the other illegal activities in your study area to help the reader.

L252 – Please mention some anti-poaching programs.

L252 – I prefer anti-poaching instead of antipoaching.

L256-258 – Please rewrite this sentence more appropriately.

L257 – Increment was not found between years but among time periods.

L258-259 – This is a result – Please rephrase.

L259-262 – Here you provide a result (again!) for the year 2019 and you also mention a citation dated on 2011. Please rewrite this sentence, keeping its meaning (if I understood that well) but in a more rational way.

L262-267 – Please claim what you have in mind in order the whole paragraph to provide a meaningful and consequential notion.

L268-271 – This is a nice example on how to discuss your findings. A very good and meaningful sentence.

L273 – “Stagnation in distance” is not a good term – Use other term and rewrite the sentence to help the reader.

L283-286 – Repetition – Please delete it.

L290-292 – Irrelevant future studies at least in the way they are presented here.

L294-301 – Please rewrite this paragraph in a more meaningful way.

L315-317 – This is a good recommendation; however, it needs to be rewritten in a more meaningful way.

L340-341 – Influence positive or negative? Please clarify.

L340-341 – influence the availability? Please correct it.

L341 – A reserve could not construct anything – Please correct the sentence.

L346 – The same as the previous comment – A reserve do not investigate.

L350 – Replace “scares” with “limited” – Delete “their livestock” – Destruction of forage resources needs a brief clarification, i.e. by what and perhaps why is this happening.

L352-354 – Repetition.

L356 – Please replace “get” with “provide”.

L349-365 – This paragraph contains useful conclusions and ideas, however, the way it is presented does not help the reader.

L355-360 – Please clarify if these strategies followed by the pastoralists in your study area. If not, it is irrelevant with this study at least in the way they are presented here. If yes, please rewrite to clarify the meaning.

L366-376 – Here you discuss livestock – wildlife interactions for first time in this manuscript. However, missing information on: a) how more fertile soil affects wildlife in a positive way, b) stimulation of sprouting of new vegetation is mainly affects positively wild herbivores (please clarify if you are referring to this category of wildlife species), and c) what livestock species and how many of them graze in the study area during the study periods is weaking the significance of this paragraph.

Conclusions:

 L379-381 – You didn’t investigate reasons – These are speculations – Please present them in a more appropriate way.

L384-385 – This is presented for first time in this manuscript. It should be further supported by mentioned it as well as by explain its significance in the Discussion section and perhaps more briefly in the Introduction section.

L385-390 – These are connected with the conclusions in lines 381-383. They should be combined and community campaigns should be mentioned after them.

General Comments:

Please check editing style throughout the check including the References section according to Journal’s guidelines.

In the Materials and Methods section, you should provide information on where are the livestock sheds. Are they inside the PAs or not? You should also provide information if livestock is usually graze freely or there are herders, dogs, etc. Does livestock spend the nighttime within the Pas of the animals return back to sheds in a daily basis? If they spend the nighttime withing the Pas it is useful to know where are these sites. You refer that livestock travel the extreme distances of 62.1 km (line 193) and 46.3 km (line 198) within PAs so at least in these cases the animals should stay within PAs during nighttime. It is essential to know for how long (approximately in days on average) they stay withing PAs. It is also essential to clarify the livestock species (probably cattle) graze illegally.

How do you explain the fact that in the 2006-14 period there are no incidents of illegal grazing in the medium distances (Table 1) while such incidents were detected in the far and the furthest distances during the same time period? In this Table it is better that the presentation of time periods should be done before the cumulative frequency. Maybe total frequency is a better term than cumulative frequency. In addition, in the first half of this table, it is not frequency per year – it is frequency per time period.

 

In Fig. 2b, it seems that incidents of illegal grazing are at the similar level in relation to 2c and 2d. Is this true?

The subchapters (lines 189 and 207), in my opinion should be merged.

A, at least, non-parametric analysis on the answers of the questionnaires used in this study should be done. To present only percentages based on these answers weaking the results (lines 216-224) and the conclusions you make.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your valuable inputs

Kind regards

Nyangabo (on behalf of other authors)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for inviting me to review this manuscript. I will try my best to check it word by word. Illegal livestock grazing was an interesting question to research on. However, it may a management question by local government. If nature reserves conducted strictly management policies on banning grazing, there was no illegal grazing in the study area. Please find more comment details as follows:

Line 39: I suggested that the “Pas” should change to “PAs”.

Line 45-47: In my opinions, these data which was about livestock population in 2015 was a little outdated. There was a lot changes in livestock grazing from 2015 to 2021. It changed too fast. I suggested authors should find some new data.

Line 185: Figure 2 should be modified due to compass should be shown completely. Figure 2(a) and Figure 2(c) has be covered partly by Figure 2(b) and Figure 2(d).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your valuable contributions to our article

Kind regards

Nyangabo (on behalf of other author)

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The revised version has been improved in relation to the original manuscript. As I can see, most of the comments relative to the original version have been addressed more or less. However, several parts of the revised version, mainly in the Discussion section, contains both the new inputs and the relative old ones. As a result, several parts are repeated, sometimes the presented ideas and the whole meaning are ambiguous and the final decision cannot be reached.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer we are grateful for your comments which shaped our manuscripts.

Please find attached letter explaining how your comments were addressed.

Thank you very much for your valuable time

Nyangabo Musika on behalf of all authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors did a good job on updating this manuscript. I'd like to give a accept decision afer minor revised. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your valuable inputs.Please find attached letter explaining how we have accommodated your inputs.

Kind regards

Nyangabo Musika on behalf of all authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx