Pastoralism and Tourism in Eastern Africa—Quantitative Analysis from 2004 to 2018

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The ms 'Pastoralism and tourism in Eastern Africa –Conflicts or Contri-butions?' by Bacsi et al. examines the contribution of pastoralism to tourism-related GDP in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania and aims to build a database of indicators measuring the extent of pastoralism in these countries for 2004, 2014 and 2018. The methodology involves using secondary sources to build the database and applying correlation analysis to the economic and tourism performance data series of the four countries studied. The results indicate that the size of pastoralism is positively related to GDP and value added from tourism and agriculture, and international tourism receipts are positively related to the contribution of pastoralism to GDP. The Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) is negatively related to the size of the pastoralism sector.

Although the idea is more than welcome the ms needs much improvement.

The introduction although providing an overview of the topic has some errors. Firstly, it does not maintain coherence: the topic of pastoralism is started in the sixth paragraph, continued in the tourism subsection and then discussed in detail in a separate subsection. Then, there are repetitions: 'These countries are among the poorest quarter of the countries of the world' and 'The African continent is generally poor'and many unnecessary details.

However, this section needs to be much shortened. Data are presented that do not belong here. This section is to provide an introduction to the topic to be presented.

I suggest that the second part of this section could be moved to the Results or Discussion sections.

On the other hand, the next section, Methodology and data starts by presenting the objectives (analyse the contribution of pastoralism to tourism-related GDP in East Africa). These should be presented in the last part of the introduction.

This section should say how you proceed with the data, methods applied and so on, but by no means why ("to answer our first research objective"), so remove this.

Study area: the map of the study area should be presented here.

Results: this section presents the results. The next section, the Discussions section, should be used for commenting on the results, so all comments should be moved.

Discussion: this is by far the best section of the ms.
However, there are details that should be excluded.

Author Response

REply to reviewers: Reviewer 1:

• The ms 'Pastoralism and tourism in Eastern Africa –Conflicts or Contri-butions?' by Bacsi et al. examines the contribution of pastoralism to tourism-related GDP in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania and aims to build a database of indicators measuring the extent of pastoralism in these countries for 2004, 2014 and 2018. The methodology involves using secondary sources to build the database and applying correlation analysis to the economic and tourism performance data series of the four countries studied. The results indicate that the size of pastoralism is positively related to GDP and value added from tourism and agriculture, and international tourism receipts are positively related to the contribution of pastoralism to GDP. The Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) is negatively related to the size of the pastoralism sector. Although the idea is more than welcome the ms needs much improvement.

Reply: The authors are grateful for the reviewer for the valuable comments, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript. We did our best to improve our paper according to  the reviewer’s suggestions

 

• The introduction although providing an overview of the topic has some errors. Firstly, it does not maintain coherence: the topic of pastoralism is started in the sixth paragraph, continued in the tourism subsection and then discussed in detail in a separate subsection. Then, there are repetitions: 'These countries are among the poorest quarter of the countries of the world' and 'The African continent is generally poor'and many unnecessary details.

Reply: We have re-organised the Introduction section, starting with a general description of Eastern Africa, then a section about pastoralism, then another section about tourism in Eastern Africa, then another section about nature-based and wildlife tourism in relation to pastoralism. Repetitive text was deleted.

• However, this section needs to be much shortened. Data are presented that do not belong This section is to provide an introduction to the topic to be presented. I suggest that the second part of this section could be moved to the Results or Discussion sections. On the other hand, the next section, Methodology and data starts by presenting the objectives (analyse the contribution of pastoralism to tourism-related GDP in East Africa). These should be presented in the last part of the introduction.

Reply: We have shortened the original text of the Introduction, and irrelevant data table were deleted, or moved to later parts of the manuscript as suggested. The research objectives were moved from Methodology to the end of the Introduction.

• This section should say how you proceed with the data, methods applied and so on, but by no means why ("to answer our first research objective"), so remove this. Study area: the map of the study area should be presented here.

Reply: The map of Eastern Africa to the end of Methodology, where the study area was presented. The description of the TEV methodology was also moved to Methodology from Introduction. The text was modified according to the reviewer’s suggestions.

• Results: this section presents the results. The next section, the Discussions section, should be used for commenting on the results, so all comments should be moved. Discussion: this is by far the best section of the ms. However, there are details that should be excluded.

Reply: The text was improved according to the reviewer’s suggestion. The Result section was cleaned from the interpretations of the results, the Discussion section is now better focused on interpreting the results, and Discussions and Conclusions were somewhat shortened and more focused.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors, 

Congratulations for your manuscript.

Please, see attached my suggestions.

I hope they will be useful.

Best regards

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

The writing must be double checked.

There are lot of typos.

Author Response

Reply to reviewers: Reviewer 2:

 Dear Authors, Congratulations for your manuscript. Please, see attached my suggestions. I hope they will be useful.  General Comments: The manuscript presents an interesting discussion about the potential relationship between pastoralism and tourism in Eastern Africa. Also, the manuscript highlights the scarce data availability about this subject and propose an alternative to overcome this issue, providing some relevant data summarized in table 4. However, the manuscript is far from demonstrate enough quality to be published.

Reply: The authors are grateful for the reviewer for the valuable comments, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript. We did our best to improve our paper according to  the reviewer’s suggestions

The manuscript present two objectives, but only demonstrate some quality to accomplish the second: “The second objective – which is necessary to complete the first one – is to build up a database of indicators measuring the extent of pastoralism for several countries and years”. For the first, the method applied and the results displayed do not provide enough consistence to support the statements about the main research question indicated in the title. The Correlation analysis does not provide information about contribution or influence between variables (economic activities) as indicated in the manuscript. It is a statistical instrument to indicate variable patterns and general variable distribution. Hence, the results and discussion provided are not valid. The authors should explore another statistical approach to assess the relationship between economic activities such as multivariate analysis and/or indicators that demonstrate relative shares.

Reply: We have improved the statistical analysis. The correlation tables were re-constructed. and multiple regression analysis was also added to the applied methods. Regression results now better support our arguments than the criticised correlation analysis. Also, the per capita outputs were also measured and tested, as a new addition.

The manuscript is excessive long, so repetitive and must be rewritten focusing on the main findings. The sections must be reorganized, particularly the introduction, the methods and conclusion. Also, the writing must be completely reviewed, there are lot of typos. Please, insert lines in pages.

Reply: We have improved the text in this sense. We have re-organised the Introduction section, starting with a general description of Eastern Africa, then a section about pastoralism, then another section about tourism in Eastern Africa, then another section about nature-based and wildlife tourism in relation to pastoralism. Repetitive text was deleted. The methodology section was also re-organised, irrelevant data tables in the Introduction were deleted, or moved to the Methodology – to the description of the study area.  The research objectives were moved from Methodology to the end of the Introduction. The description of the TEV methodology was moved to the beginning of the Methodology section. The text was thoroughly checked for typos.

Specific comments:

Page 2, paragraph 2: spite of the large areas, their representativeness is quite short. How the authors indicated this land use change as “considerable”?

       Reply: The incorrect text was deleted.

Page 2, paragraph 3: Please provide complete description of acronyms: GNI, PPP.

       Reply: The full names were added to the text.

Tables 1 and 2 are unnecessary in introduction section

       Reply: Tables are removed, as unnecessary.

 Page 5, paragraph 4: why the authors provide information from Sub-Saharan Africa? This passage is quite confusing.

       Reply: Information about Sub-Saharan Africa is deleted, as not relevant.

Page 6, paragraph 2: how the authors explain this numbers? They are quite surprising and need more explanation.

       Reply: A brief explanation is added, based on the source literature.

Page 6, paragraph 3: Quite confusing. Lot of information and the authors do not provide a concise argument to join all data provided.

       Reply: The paragraph is deleted, as it is not really relevant for the rest of the paper.

Page 7, paragraph 1: How pastoral livestock provide climate regulation services? The authors provide some information only in page 8…. The text must be more concise.         

       Reply: The explanation from page 8 is moved and merged with this paragraph, and some more explanatory text is added.

Page 10, paragraph 1: the authors provide some definitions that are unnecessary and it becomes the manuscript confusing and excessive long.

       Reply: The redundant definitions and details are deleted from the manuscript.

Page 11, paragraph 2: this is a major issue of the manuscript and the author must focus on this and provide deeper discussion about it.

Reply: Additional explanations are added to this paragraph

Figure 3 and all passages related to it must be moved to methods section.

       Reply: The figure and the explanation about the TEV method are moved to the beginning of Methodology.

Section 2.1 (the research objectives) is not suitable for method section.

       Reply: Research objectives are now moved to the end of the Introduction section.

The correlation analysis does not provide robust result do answer “first research objective” of the manuscript.

               Reply: The revised version of the manuscript now applies multiple regression analysis besides the correlation analysis part, so the first research objective is better supported.

Section 2.1 (the study area) provides interesting and organized information, but all information provided is repetitive. Results section: I’m not sure that 4.93% is a considerable constitution to GDP

               Reply: The description of the study area is now considerably shortened, repetitions deleted, and improper wording is corrected.

Figure 4: confusing.

               Reply: The figure has been simplified, unimportant variables are deleted.              

Correlation output section: Too many variables and it is quite confusing to follow. Moreover, there is a clear misunderstanding between correlation and causality. Correlation analysis only shows the pattern (trajectory) of the variables, but says nothing about the influence or determination between them. Hence, this method is inappropriate to answer the research question: “The main aim of the paper is to analyse the contribution of pastoralism to the tourism-related GDP of East Africa”

       Reply: Correlation tables are simplified, focusing on fewer – and more relevant – variables, and besides correlation analysis the paper now applies multiple regression analysis, too.

Page 21, paragraph 2: the correlation index does not support this statement: “This means that a larger pastoralist sector increases national incomes”.

       Reply: The text has been modified, and is based on regression analysis rather than correlation outputs.

Page 23, paragraph 2: “This means that pastoralism is a profitable economic sector, and its efficiency is reasonably good”. The manuscript does not offer results to support this statement. Page 23, paragraph 2: “It means that pastoralism is not less efficient than other sectors of the economy”. The manuscript does not offer results to support this statement.

       Reply: The paragraph is modified, and additional computation (per capita value added by pastoralism, compared to per capita GDP) is added to assess the efficiency of pastoralism.

Page 23, paragraph 2: “The agricultural efficiency of pastoralism depends on the land resources, and not so much on labour availability, as the agricultural activity – nomadic herding – depends more on the availability of grazing land, than on the number of herdsmen”. The manuscript does not offer results to support this statement.

       Reply: The improper paragraph has been deleted.

Discussion section Paragraphs excessive long with lot of information about a huge range of variables. Sometimes, it is quite hard to understand what the authors mean. Please, rewrite and focus on only in the key results

       Reply: The Discussion section has been re-written in line with the modified statistical analysis. It is now more concise, and better focused ont he main results of the research.

Conclusion section Page 26, paragraph 1: “Pastoralism may play a more significant role in the national GDP than its population size would suggest, as its share in GDP is higher than in population. This underlines the suggestion of several studies, that pastoralism is actually a rather efficient form of utilising unfavourable environmental conditions”. This is a relevant point and the authors should focus on key issue and provide more arguments about it.

       Reply: The statement is somewhat re-worded, and more arguments are added to the text.

Page 26, paragraph 3: “As results show, the extent of pastoralism (i.e. its share in land area, and in population) is positively related to national incomes, i.e. GDP, tourism and agriculture, as we have already established, and this contribution is higher than the share of pastoralists in population, therefore pastoralist communities seem to be more efficient GDP-generators, than the national average.” The manuscript does not offer results to support this statement.

       Reply: The statement has been corrected, and connected to the statistical results.

Spite of the consideration about limited data availability be quite relevant; this section is quite repetitive and must be rewritten

       Reply: The Conclusions section is thoroughly re-written, focusing on the key messages of the research results. The manuscript has been altogether 4 pages shorter, and better structured, as we hope.

Reviewer 3 Report

- please mention the policy implication in the abstract section based on your study findings

- the introduction needs to discuss what the previous research done, and please clearly state the research gap,

- reseach contribution should be added in the introduction section, is your reseacrh have spesific contribution to the existing literature?

- the structure of this paper needs to be reformulated, you can use the following structure, (introduction, literature review, method, results, and concussion)

Author Response

Reply to reviewers: Reviewer 3.

- please mention the policy implication in the abstract section based on your study findings.

Reply: The authors are grateful for the reviewer for the valuable comments, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript. We did our best to improve our paper according to  the reviewer’s suggestions. The Abstract section was improved as suggested, with policy implications added to the end.

 - the introduction needs to discuss what the previous research done, and please clearly state the research gap, - reseach contribution should be added in the introduction section, is your reseacrh have spesific contribution to the existing literature?

REPLY: The introduction section is re-structured, with each sub-section discussing the most important previous research done in the particular topic. The research gap is now clearly specified in the last section of the Introduction, together with the novelty of the present research, i.e. the specific contribution of our research to the state of the art.

- the structure of this paper needs to be reformulated, you can use the following structure, (introduction, literature review, method, results, and concussion)

REPLY: We have followed the article template provided by the journal Sustainability – in which the editors require that the Literature review is included in the Introduction section, and a Discussion section is placed between Results and Conclusions.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

General: This could be an interesting and worthwhile article with significant revision. I note several contradictions, but I would like to give the authors a chance to explain themselves and try again.

This article is well written, well structured, and uses an extended and up-to-date set of references. This post also provides interesting background information on the problem described, and a few minor issues that came up during my review:

General: Please use subscripts and superscripts where applicable.

1. Please improve the manuscript title.

2. What does your article bring to the research field that other papers did not address? I think this must be clearly established to highlight the reader about the novelty statement of this article.

3. The English grammar and style should be checked throughout the paper.

4. Author needs to add clear objectives for the study.

5. figure one and two can be improved in Quality and resolution.

6. Conclusions and recommendations must be clearly related to the results. These relationships should be included in the text.

7. The authors should mention the main limitations of this study at the end of the conclusion section in one paragraph.

 

8. Follow the sequence of citations.

The English grammar and style should be checked throughout the paper.

Author Response

REply to reviewers: Reviewer 4:

General: This could be an interesting and worthwhile article with significant revision. I note several contradictions, but I would like to give the authors a chance to explain themselves and try again. This article is well written, well structured, and uses an extended and up-to-date set of references. This post also provides interesting background information on the problem described, and a few minor issues that came up during my review. General: Please use subscripts and superscripts where applicable.

Reply: The authors are grateful for the reviewer for the valuable comments, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript. We did our best to improve our paper according to  the reviewer’s suggestions

1. Please improve the manuscript title.

Reply: The manuscript title was changed, the current title is: „Pastoralism and tourism in Eastern Aftica – Qantitative analysis from 2004 to 2018”. We hope this is more satisfactory than the original title.

2. What does your article bring to the research field that other papers did not address? I think this must be clearly established to highlight the reader about the novelty statement of this article.

REPLY: The research gap is now clearly specified in the last section of the Introduction, together with the novelty of the present research.

3. The English grammar and style should be checked throughout the paper.

REPLY: The manuscript was thoroughly checked for language and typos. Thank you for pointing it out.

4. Author needs to add clear objectives for the study.

Reply: Research objectives are now specified at the end of the Introduction section, together with the explanation of the research gap and the novelties of the paper.

5. figure one and two can be improved in Quality and resolution.

Reply: Figure 1 was deleted as irrelevant to the rest of the paper, the quality and resolution of Figure 2 was enhanced.

6. Conclusions and recommendations must be clearly related to the results. These relationships should be included in the text.

Reply: In conclusions the statements now refer back to the parts of the analysis (correlation, regression, etc.) presented in the Results section.

7. The authors should mention the main limitations of this study at the end of the conclusion section in one paragraph.

Reply: The last paragraph of conclusions is re-written, now it mentions the main limitations of the study, together with future research directions.

8. Follow the sequence of citations.

Reply: The sequence of citations is now thoroughly revised, and the proper order is established.

Reviewer 5 Report

The article is interesting. The main purpose of the article was to analyze the share of shepherding in the tourist GDP of Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Another goal was to build a database of indicators measuring the range of shepherding for these countries in 2004, 2014 and 2018. The Total Economic Valuation method was used in the article. The data set was collected from international statistical databases, compiled from literature sources and calculated on the basis of collected source data. In order to answer the research objectives and indicate the relationship between pastoralism indicators and tourism-related indicators, a correlation analysis was carried out.

This approach seems scientifically justified. The authors of the article have done a very large amount of work. The article contains many tables and figures. The literature review is very rich - over 80 items. The results are clearly presented with convincing graphics.

         The authors pointed out problems with data acquisition. The manuscript is generally well written but could be improved. The article would benefit from writing a broader introduction to the article, explaining what is in each section of each chapter. The article seems a bit too long and could be shortened a bit, especially since there are repetitions. I would also suggest the authors of the article to change the title to sound more scientific.

I propose to accept the article for publication after completion.

Author Response

REply to reviewers: Reviewer 5:

• The article is interesting. The main purpose of the article was to analyze the share of shepherding in the tourist GDP of Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Another goal was to build a database of indicators measuring the range of shepherding for these countries in 2004, 2014 and 2018. The Total Economic Valuation method was used in the article. The data set was collected from international statistical databases, compiled from literature sources and calculated on the basis of collected source data. In order to answer the research objectives and indicate the relationship between pastoralism indicators and tourism-related indicators, a correlation analysis was carried out. This approach seems scientifically justified. The authors of the article have done a very large amount of work. The article contains many tables and figures. The literature review is very rich - over 80 items. The results are clearly presented with convincing graphics. The authors pointed out problems with data acquisition. The manuscript is generally well written but could be improved.

Reply: The authors are grateful for the reviewer for the valuable comments, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript. We did our best to improve our paper according to  the reviewer’s suggestions

• The article would benefit from writing a broader introduction to the article, explaining what is in each section of each chapter.

Reply: The introduction section was re-organised, and better structured, and at the end of the Introduction we included a brief description of the content of the following chapters.

• The article seems a bit too long and could be shortened a bit, especially since there are repetitions.

Reply: The manuscript was improved in this sense, altogether shortened by 4 pages. 

 

• I would also suggest the authors of the article to change the title to sound more scientific.

Reply: The manuscript title was changed, the current title is: „Pastoralism and tourism in Eastern Aftica – Qantitative analysis from 2004 to 2018”. We hope this is more satisfactory than the original title.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Indeed ms has been improved. Most of the comments have been taken into account. However, the introduction is still too detailed. It needs to be shortened significantly.

The next section still contains too much detail. In fact, this section should present what methods were used, how each method was performed, or what kind of data can be obtained. Remove any other details.

In the Discussion section, a final paragraph has been added, very welcome. But it has no reference.

Author Response

Comment 1) Indeed ms has been improved. Most of the comments have been taken into account. However, the introduction is still too detailed. It needs to be shortened significantly.

REPLY: The Introduction section is shortened from the 5.5 pages to 4 pages in the current version, deleting irrelevant details.

Comment 2) The next section still contains too much detail. In fact, this section should present what methods were used, how each method was performed, or what kind of data can be obtained. Remove any other details.

REPLY: The Methodology section is shortened from the former 6 pages to 4 pages in the current version, deleting irrelevant details, and moving information about the study area into the Results section.

Comment 3) In the Discussion section, a final paragraph has been added, very welcome. But it has no reference.

REPLY: The relevant references – 3 items – have been added to the paragraph.

The authors are grateful for the reviewer for the careful evaluation and the constructive suggestions. We did our best to follow the suggestions and improve the manuscript accordingly.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors

Thank you for your new manuscript.

This new version presents considerable improvements. 

However, the main shortcommings demonstrated on the first version can be found in this version.

The regresion analysis is interesting, but the authors do not demonstrate how the results can be used to explain their hypothesis about the relationships between pastorialism and tourism. Moreover, the model presented is quite simple, based on few variables, which undermines robusts conclusion about its results. The discussion presented is quite fragile and the regression model was used more to suppport the findings of correlation analysis than to provide answer to the manuscript's research questions. 

Also, there are lot of variables on the paper as presented in correlation tables, but the authors do not explore all of them in the regression analysis. Therefore, the question is: these variables are relevant for the manuscript?

The text continues excessive long and repetitive.

The quality of english is good, but a moderade review must be done before publicarion on a high quality journal. 

Author Response

Comment 1) Dear Authors, Thank you for your new manuscript. This new version presents considerable improvements. However, the main shortcommings demonstrated on the first version can be found in this version.

REPLY: The authors are grateful for the reviewer for the careful evaluation and the constructive suggestions. We did our best to follow the suggestions and improve the manuscript accordingly.

Comment 2) The regresion analysis is interesting, but the authors do not demonstrate how the results can be used to explain their hypothesis about the relationships between pastorialism and tourism. Moreover, the model presented is quite simple, based on few variables, which undermines robusts conclusion about its results.

REPLY: The regression analysis was thoroughly revised, and the new results are included in the model instead of the former simple ones. However, it must be mentioned that with only 12 cases it is difficult to set up complex models, because of the danger of multicollinearity on the one hand, and of overfitting, on the other. this was the reason why control variables were not always possible to include, and only 3 or 4 independent variables are included in the model. When we tried out more complex structures, multicollinearity occurred, or only irrelevant (not significant) relationships were found. We hope that the present model structures still support our conclusions, though we are aware of the need for a larger database with more cases to each variable.

Comment 3) The discussion presented is quite fragile and the regression model was used more to suppport the findings of correlation analysis than to provide answer to the manuscript's research questions. 

REPLY: The discussion section  was thoroughly revised and re-written, based on the new regression results, and explaining their meaning in more detail.

Comment 4) Also, there are lot of variables on the paper as presented in correlation tables, but the authors do not explore all of them in the regression analysis. Therefore, the question is: these variables are relevant for the manuscript?

REPLY: We agree with the reviewer’s opinion, that many variables were not really meaningful for the research objective – mainly those related to WHS and TTCI – therefore these were removed from the present version of the paper, as irrelevant.

Comment 5) The text continues excessive long and repetitive.

REPLY: We have thoroughly revised the text, shortening the Introduction, the Methodology, and the Conclusion section considerably, and deleting irrelevant or repetitive paragraphs. The manuscript now is 22 pages, instead of the former 27 pages.

Comment 6) Comments on the Quality of English Language: The quality of english is good, but a moderade review must be done before publicarion on a high quality journal. 

REPLY: The text was checked for language mistakes and typos, and several corrections were made.

Reviewer 3 Report

Thanks for addresing my sugesstion

I am happy to accept the paper

Author Response

Comment 1) Thanks for addresing my sugesstion. I am happy to accept the paper

REPLY: The authors are grateful for the reviewer for the careful evaluation and the constructive suggestions. We did our best to follow the suggestions and improve the manuscript accordingly, and are very glad that the reviewer found it satisfactory.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Ms has been greatly improved. This time I have no comments.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors, 

Congratulations for your manuscript.

I imagine que now it presents quality to be pulished.

Best regards

Minor editing of English language required