Local Perceptions of Climate Change and Adaptation Responses from Two Mountain Regions in Tanzania

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The reasoning and justification of the paper is well-developed. Methods are qualitative and social-science based. There is little to no hard science in the paper. Limitations of this are clearly-stated. The paper flows well and holds the reader's attention. Results and conclusions are cleary presented.The only suggestion I would have is to remove the two spreadsheets with extensive data that has already been presented elsewhere in the paper.

Author Response

Reviewer 1.

The reasoning and justification of the paper is well-developed. Methods are qualitative and social-science based. There is little to no hard science in the paper. Limitations of this are clearly-stated. The paper flows well and holds the reader's attention. Results and conclusions are cleary presented.

 

RESPONSE: Thank you for your feedback on the paper.

 

The only suggestion I would have is to remove the two spreadsheets with extensive data that has already been presented elsewhere in the paper.

 

RESPONSE: Thank you for your feedback on the paper. We believe that Table 1 and 2, if this is what you are referring to, are useful to include in the paper because only a small portion of the data is reported in the main text. A key “value-add” of including these tables in the manuscript allows for the reader to have a quick overview of the variables which were captured in the survey and to identify the differences in the significant and non-significant variables.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper has interesting goal and content but the study is not systematic. I cannot see the representation and the broader implications. Findings are also all over the place and not focused on the main study question.

 

Abstract line 40: “Our study contributes to the still small but growing body of literature docu-40 menting the importance of better integrating Indigenous Knowledge into climate change policy and 41 practice.” – I think this is detached from the study aim of social perception of climate change.

 

Line 47: “Mountains cover 30.5% of all land [1], and contain 23% of…”—the proposed study goal in the abstract is the social perception of climate change, I am not sure why the study starts with mountains.

 

2.1. Study sites: Show representativeness rather than lengthy description.

 

Figure 4. Absolute number and share won’t be useful unless benchmark or differences among groups are shown.

 

Table 3: What is the criteria of an impact is validly reported?

 

Line 647: “some of 647 which might be more sustainable and replicable than others,”—how is this determined?

 

Line 689: “Results may help local communities and na-689 tional governments meet national and international policy targets such as the Tanzania 690 National Adaptation Programme of Action, Sustainable Development Goals with the aim 691 to ‘leave no one behind’, the African Union Agenda 2063, the Sendai framework, and the 692 Paris Agreement.”—instead of listing conforming goals, the authors are suggested to highlight the content of conform.

Author Response

Reviewer 2.

The paper has interesting goal and content, but the study is not systematic.

RESPONSE: Thank you for the comment. We have carefully revised the manuscript closely to edit where we think the results and presentation can be presented more clearly. The aims and objectives, and paper structure has been revised accordingly.

We believe the study has a robust methodology and a very clear protocol which has been described in the method in the appendix of the paper which presents this protocol. We also include the analytical method using descriptive statistic and basic regressions to show significance.  We therefore would argue that it is systematic. We feel that the qualitative element of understanding fills an important research gap making it a novel manuscript.

We hope you find this has improved the quality of the paper.

I cannot see the representation and the broader implications.

RESPONSE: Thank you for this insight. We have amended the introduction and the discussion to make the implications more evident – referring to other studies, international processes and regions with inference of wider scalability and generalizability. The discussion has largely been rewritten to address this issue. We have also amended the section in the methods to emphasize why we chose the case studies and why they are representative. We have also amended the abstract to make this more explicit – so representativeness within African mountains and wider application.

Findings are also all over the place and not focused on the main study question.

RESPONSE: Thank you for raising this point. The aims and objectives of the study have been reviewed and adjusted to be clearer. The results have been restructured to reflect these objectives, and this also mirrors the structure of the discussion. Figure 4 has been moved to fall under the section to which it refers to. The section on the farmers organizations and climate literacy has been removed and some of the most relevant results are incorporated into sections describing adaptation strategies as well as other factoring influencing adaptation.

 

The revised aims and objectives of the paper are as follows:

“Comparing the cases of Mount Kilimanjaro and the Udzungwa Mountains in Tanzania, this study aims to better understand the perceived changes, impacts and adaptation responses of farmers in East African mountains. Objectives are to: (1) identify observed climate change and their impacts on streamflow, landslides, soil erosion; agricultural production; and human and livestock health; (2) evidence local farmers’ adaptation strategies; (3) investigate how different adaptation responses according to farmer characteristics of wealth and gender; and (4) understand how other factors, such as climate change literacy, membership in a farmers’ associations or labour availability, support or hinder adaptation.”

The structure of the results and the discussion have been amendment to follow this order.

Abstract line 40: “Our study contributes to the still small but growing body of literature documenting the importance of better integrating Indigenous Knowledge into climate change policy and practice.” – I think this is detached from the study aim of social perception of climate change.

RESPONSE: Thank you for the feedback. We have edited this line of the abstract to state more explicitly what the aim of the paper is and its implications, i.e., “Our study contributes to the still small but growing body of literature documenting capturing Indigenous farmers’ perceptions of climate change and adaptation responses which can contribute to better designing and formulating policies and adaptation strategies.”

Line 47: “Mountains cover 30.5% of all land [1], and contain 23% of…”—the proposed study goal in the abstract is the social perception of climate change, I am not sure why the study starts with mountains.

RESPONSE: Thank you for this question. The reason that the paper starts with mountains is because we study farmer communities in mountain regions, where the effects of increased temperatures (and changing rainfall patterns) are greater than the lowlands – but are least studied in Africa (as we mention in the introduction). The special issue guest editors approached us requesting to submit a paper to the special issue. We then provided them with a draft of this manuscript prior to submission to the journal and it was recommended that we frame the paper starting with climate mountains, zooming into African mountain farmers and then on climate adaptation and impacts. Therefore, we have selected this order to frame the manuscript. Please see the description of the special issue here: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/land/special_issues/mountains_under_pressure Another reason that we start the paper with this framing is because we included the emphasis mountains in the heading of the manuscript. We have revised the aim of the paper to emphasize the aim is to between understand mountain farmer communities in East Africa.

2.1. Study sites: Show representativeness rather than lengthy description.

RESPONSE: Thank you for this recommendation. We have provided a justification that these study sites are representative of wider changes and exemplify characteristics in other mountain social ecological systems in tropical Africa – as follows:

“We studied two mountain systems in Tanzania because they represent a range of characteristics, climate risks and wider social-ecological changes likely to be found in other mountain regions in sub-Saharan Africa. Both mountains are home to unique ethnic communities, are characterized by fast growing populations, changes in climate, transformations in agricultural practices, land and water systems and shifts in regulatory contexts. Case studies thus offer broad regional coverage which provide the rationale for generalizing and scaling place-based results.”

The variables which we selected to include the study site description cover the biophysical, ecological, climatic, agricultural, and social context to allow for comparison between the two sites. We believe all these variables need to be described to allow for a comprehensive description of the study area. Nonetheless where text could be slightly shortened; we removed this to make it more to the point.

The selection of the study sites allows for wider comparability, scalability, or generalization – as described in the discussion of the paper. We confirm that the format of the study site description conforms with the standards that are typical of other papers published on this topic (E.g., Pickson and He 2021; Kalanda-Joshua et al 2011; and Guido et al 2020) as well as papers in the journal Land.

Figure 4. Absolute number and share won’t be useful unless benchmark or differences among groups are shown.

RESPONSE: Thank you for the recommendation. The table does indeed represent the differences between the two ethnic groups surveyed: The Chagga (green) and Hefe (blue). We provide the percentage reported here.

Table 3: What is the criteria of an impact is validly reported?

RESPONSE: Thank you for the question. This table represents previously peer reviewed studies published in internationally recognized journals. Since these studies have already been peer reviewed independently, the purpose of this literature review was not to assess the criteria systematically of how impact was reported, but rather to place our findings into a broader context of existing literature.

Nonetheless, in our inclusion of the studies we qualitatively assessed following the criteria of Rodriguez et al (2016). We included a statement in the methods to explain this, as follows: “first conducted a literature review to assess the state of evidence of climate change impacts and adaptation in mountains, with a focus on mountains. Studies that were included in the review and were coded were qualitatively assessed for quality following Rodriguez, et al. (2016), i.e., 1- the data collection methods were thoroughly explained; 2 – the sample size was well explained; 3 – qualitative/quantitative analytical methods were clear and rationale; 4 – results and conclusions were logically derived; and 5 – confounding factors were considered and explained. In each study area we used the same approach. “

The following reference was added to the citation list:

Rodríguez, L. G., N. J. Hogarth, W. Zhou, C. Xie, K. Zhang, and L. Putzel. 2016. China’s conversion of cropland to forest program: a systematic review of the environmental and socioeconomic effects. Environmental Evidence 5:21. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13750-016-0071-x

Line 647: “some of which might be more sustainable and replicable than others,”—how is this determined?

RESPONSE: Thank you for the feedback. We have added the following sentence to describe that a number of factors would need to be assessed and evaluated: “To assess this, one would have to assess and evaluate each strategy depending on the technical, social, biophysical, infrastructural, micro- and macro-economic, and regional and national regulatory contexts, communications, stakeholder involvement, as well as barriers to overcome.  

Line 689: “Results may help local communities and national governments meet national and international policy targets such as the Tanzania National Adaptation Programme of Action, Sustainable Development Goals with the aim to ‘leave no one behind’, the African Union Agenda 2063, the Sendai framework, and the Paris Agreement.”—instead of listing conforming goals, the authors are suggested to highlight the content of conform.

RESPONSE: Thank you for the recommendation. We have edited this section to describe the content of the goals and provide more detail.

We have edited the text as follows:

“The results of this paper are timely and have national and international significance. Nationally, insights have relevance in realizing the plans of Southern Agricultural Corridor of Tanzania public private partnership which will influence Udzungwa within the work of the Kilombero cluster– and the vision to introduce climate smart practices to famers, boost agricultural productivity, improve food security, reduce poverty, and ensure environmental sustainability through the commercialization of smallholder agriculture, as well as the Tanzania National Adaptation Programme of Action - which explicitly mentions Mount Kilimanjaro, the Eastern Arc and Southwestern highlands, but not the Udzungwa mountains. Internationally, results have the potential to inform various ongoing international processes and signs of commitment to secure the resilience of Indigenous mountain peoples: not least the Sustainable Development Goal 2 on Zero Hunger (target 2.3.2), Goal 3 on health and well-being, Goal 4 on education (target 4.5.1), and Goal 5 on gender equality and the need to ‘leave no one behind’. Results also have relevance for Agenda 2063 – and targets to climate proof investments (aspiration 1.7), ensure local people appropriately consulted in landscape planning (aspiration 6) and that citizens are healthy, well-nourished, educated, and strong (aspiration 1.3). Clearly the challenges around adapting to climate change impacts are happening and going to become more common in the future. Understanding the local context of these challenges, and the ensuing locally acceptable adaptation responses, are key to maintaining and enhancing livelihoods of mountain communities where such climate change risks will likely to be most acute.”

Reviewer 3 Report

This is a very important case study showing the problems faced by the population of mountain areas. The only thing missing - and I would like to encourage the authors to do so - is the global positioning of the problem. The background section will help a lot to understand the problem.
This would provide a broader background and allow broader conclusions to be drawn that could be applied elsewhere. For this purpose, a methodological subsection would also be useful, showing the representativeness of the area as a mountain region - we know that each mountain area (although different) has some similarities.
Anyway, it's a very good material that touches on some of the poorest areas in the world, and I strongly recommend publishing it. 
I would also ask for a closer look at the possible application of the conclusions - to make them more oriented towards the fight against inequality. Working out a broader background will also give the opportunity to draw general conclusions and management implications. 

Author Response

Reviewer 3.

This is a very important case study showing the problems faced by the population of mountain areas.

 

RESPONSE: Thank you for the positive feedback and the time which you took to review the manuscript.

 

The only thing missing - and I would like to encourage the authors to do so - is the global positioning of the problem. The background section will help a lot to understand the problem. This would provide a broader background and allow broader conclusions to be drawn that could be applied elsewhere.

 

RESPONSE: Thank you for this recommendation. Both in the introductory framing and the discussion and implications of the study we have attempted to address this issue and frame the paper with a broader global positioning. For instance, we refer to the number of Indigenous persons worldwide, as follows in the discussion:

 

“With over 370 million Indigenous people’s worldwide, managing 28% of the world’s land surface, and being de facto guardians of 80% of the world’s global biodiversity (Campbell, 2019) and given the seriousness of climate variability and change for mountain populations who are among the most vulnerable, we provide evidence of how Indigenous mountain communities can provide insights for a wide range of climate variables beyond rainfall and temperature (e.g., fog, rain showers, hailstorms) that can be locally important, as shown by other studies (e.g., [35–37]). Often Indigenous Knowledge operates at much finer temporal and spatial scale than scientific observations and includes understandings of how to adapt to and contribute to global mitigation efforts. Furthermore, Indigenous Knowledge has evolved in situ, contains transgenerational information and baselines from earlier times before there was scientific information present in many territories (UNESCO, 2020). It is also livelihood-oriented and integrative (Boillat and Berkes, 2013). Although local context is very important in mountain regions (Klein et al. 2019), some of the key considerations of the Chagga and Hefe (e.g. climatic changes observed beyond temperature and rainfall, effects of wealth on adaptation) provide insights which can help inform policy and practice in other mountains in Africa and beyond.”

 

For the discussion we have linked in literature from other countries across Sub Saharan Africa and the global south. The discussion and the broad implications has largely been rewritten to address this issue.

 

At the end of the introduction, we have added the following paragraph to situate the situate more broadly in the international context: “Overall, in agreement with several previous studies, we call for greater integration of such Indigenous Knowledge and experience in international mechanisms and instruments (UNESCO, 2018). Such instruments include not only the IPCC [37], but also the International Science-Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity articles 8(j) and 10(c), as well as the  UNESCO and  CBD  Secretariat  Joint  Programme of  work  on  the  linkages  between biological  and  cultural  diversity.  Greater efforts are needed to strengthen transdisciplinary engagements and dialogue between Indigenous people, extension agents, scientists, and policy makers to explore synergies and complementarities of different knowledge systems, create opportunities for innovation, experiment novel methods to advance understandings, and co-produce knowledge (UNESCO, 2018). A more integrative, participative approach that combines local perceptions with meteorological data and remote-sensing products [92] will likely improve the identification and selection of meaningful and more robust adaptation options.”

 

We also added in detail about the wider implications – as shown in the response to review two’s last comment above.

 

We felt that given the focus of the special issue is on mountain under pressure and given that the literature on African mountains is scarce we would keep some of the framing up front related to Africa mountains due to the novel contribution of these results. We nonetheless situate this within the broader context and emphasize the international implications.

 

For this purpose, a methodological subsection would also be useful, showing the representativeness of the area as a mountain region - we know that each mountain area (although different) has some similarities.

RESPONSE: Thank you for the recommendation. In the methods section of the paper under the section “Study sites” we address the issue of the representativeness of the area as a mountain – and bring this narrative out more strongly. We start by stating: “We selected two mountain social-ecological systems in Tanzania that represent wider changes found in other mountains in sub-Saharan Africa and the Global South.”

 

In the limitations we have included the following sentence: “We acknowledge that the sample size of 300 households is not statistically representative of the entire population, nevertheless we believe that the trends observed are likely to be found in the larger population and in other mountain regions in the Global South”.

 

Here, we also acknowledge that more studies are needed and the limits of working in two case studies.

 

Anyway, it's a very good material that touches on some of the poorest areas in the world, and I strongly recommend publishing it. 

 

I would also ask for a closer look at the possible application of the conclusions - to make them more oriented towards the fight against inequality.

 

RESPONSE: Thank you for the recommendation. In the revised version of the manuscript, we consider in the link to inequality in two sections.

 

Under the discussion, we add the following paragraph: “Finally, it should be noted that Tanzania is currently experiencing a dramatic movement in labour out of agriculture to higher-return sectors, while commercial farms are increasingly claiming a prominent role in Tanzanian agriculture (Wineman et al., 2020). Concurrently, coronavirus pandemic has widened inequalities – and farmers have been among those that have borne the brunt – struggling to sell their produce with plunged consumer demand and changing export markets in Tanzania. Health and economic pressures intersect with climate shocks, along with competition over land and water (Win and O’Brien 2020).

 

To discuss the implications of this understanding, under the section on Implications, we added the following sentences: “With inequality during the coronavirus pandemic and wider transformations in Tanzanian society, policies should be carefully shaped to reduce inequality. For instance, there is a need to consider how to secure the livelihoods of not only subsistence and commercial farmers but a mixed sectors off-farm income; how farming communities can absorb new workers with rapidly growing populations; how wealth can be reinvested in locally produced, employment-intensive goods and services in their low-income communities; and how to support intensification rather than extensification (Wineman et al., 2020). Better international cooperation and faster development action is needed to limit substantial demographic shifts and the loss of traditional knowledge in mountain farming communities – as has been seen in many other parts of the world (Thorn et al., 2020, 2021).”

 

Working out a broader background will also give the opportunity to draw general conclusions and management implications. 

 

RESPONSE: We agree with your insights, and we have revised the paper to draw out more general implications for policy and practice – supported by previous literature.

 

The future directions and limitations have been added to the end of the broad implications and conclusions.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is much improved. However, some further improvements can still be used:

 

Please use line numbers for easier review.

 

Abstract is too long and could lose readers’ interests. Please be more concise in presenting the paper’s main findings and arguments.

 

Page 3:” A growing body of literature in the last decade recognizes the importance of local perceptions of climate change impacts on social-ecological systems, particularly in mete-orological data-scarce areas [29–32].”—the review in this part is quite sketchy and fails to deliver the key contribution of social-ecological system literatures on climate mitigation. For example, the social-ecological models and the corresponding nature based solutions:

 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213305421000205

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26271828

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26270403

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2019.0120

 

Figure 2: Whether the differences are significant need to be indicated. Suggesting using tables instead of figures.

 

Page 12: “Over 370 million Indigenous people’s worldwide, managing 28% of the world’s land sur-face, and being de facto guardians of 80% of the world’s global biodiversity (Campbell, 2019).”—these discussions should be made in the literature parts. Here please be straightforward with your findings and implications and policy suggestions.

 

Discussion part fails to offer policy suggestions despite being quite long.\

 

Page 17: “Access to credit is important, as is access to land and labour. These results are in lined with the findings obtained by [52,95,96] respectively. [56] go on to argue that suc-cessful past adaptation that has evolved over long periods of time is not the same as ad-aptation to new emerging patterns occurring at a much more rapid pace”—again, this paper is too wordy as these things appear too much. In conclusions, please be concise on your main findings and implications, leaving discussion of other’s works in earlier parts.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

The manuscript is much improved. However, some further improvements can still be used:

RESPONSE: Thank you for your feedback and for looking at the revised version of the manuscript.

Please use line numbers for easier review.

RESPONSE: We have included line numbers. The reason this was not included in the previous version was that were following the template Land provided.  We usually use these in all papers which under peer review.

Abstract is too long and could lose readers’ interests. Please be more concise in presenting the paper’s main findings and arguments.

RESPONSE: Thank you for the recommendation. We have shortened the abstract to just over 200 words.

Page 3:” A growing body of literature in the last decade recognizes the importance of local perceptions of climate change impacts on social-ecological systems, particularly in meteorological data-scarce areas [29–32].”—the review in this part is quite sketchy and fails to deliver the key contribution of social-ecological system literatures on climate mitigation. For example, the social-ecological models and the corresponding nature based solutions:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213305421000205

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26271828

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26270403

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2019.0120

RESPONSE: We thank the reviewer for the comment. The references 29-31 are literature reviews, so they provide a good overview. If the reviewer suggests another most recently published literature review on the topic, we are keen to include and have done so - that but we do not think that adding papers from case-studies from urban systems or the artic is relevant here. Our reference list is rather long already, that is why we decided to cite the 3 literature review papers we cite and have added two of what you suggested. We also added the statement: ”Another body of literature evidences the synergistic mitigation and adaptation co-benefits of nature-based solutions in agricultural landscapes, while counteracting ecological degradation and biodiversity”.

Figure 2: Whether the differences are significant need to be indicated. Suggesting using tables instead of figures.

RESPONSE: We thank the reviewer for the comment, but we disagree. The aim of this study is not to investigate significant differences across mountains, but rather to describe general patterns in each mountain and analyse statistical differences within each mountain related to wealth groups. That is why we prefer to keep a figure here and not a table, and we think adding statistical differences is not meaningful, as the context in each mountain is different (e.g. farmers do not cultivate bananas in Udzungwa).

Page 12: “Over 370 million Indigenous people’s worldwide, managing 28% of the world’s land sur-face, and being de facto guardians of 80% of the world’s global biodiversity (Campbell, 2019).”—these discussions should be made in the literature parts. Here please be straightforward with your findings and implications and policy suggestions.

RESPONSE: Thank you for this recommendation. We agree with your point and so we have removed this sentence from the discussion. We have reviewed this part of the discussion to more straightforward with our findings as you suggest. We also address this point in the two following comments.

Discussion part fails to offer policy suggestions despite being quite long.\

RESPONSE: We have reviewed the discussion to make it more succinct. We have split up the sections – the first bein “Broader implications for policy and practice” and the second being “Conclusions”, which includes conclusions, limitations and future research avenues. 

Page 17: “Access to credit is important, as is access to land and labour. These results are in lined with the findings obtained by [52,95,96] respectively. [56] go on to argue that suc-cessful past adaptation that has evolved over long periods of time is not the same as ad-aptation to new emerging patterns occurring at a much more rapid pace”—again, this paper is too wordy as these things appear too much. In conclusions, please be concise on your main findings and implications, leaving discussion of other’s works in earlier parts.

RESPONSE: We have removed the above sentence you cite as being wordy. We focus on the implications for policy and practice while balancing the need to connect the results to previous literature on the topic.

Other changes:

• We have corrected some of the references to ensure that
• We have read through the entire document and carefully proofread it to improve the English presentation.
• Appendices have been changed to Supplementary material.

Reviewer 3 Report

I am happy with the current version of the paper. Congrats!

Author Response

Thank you for your positive response and for the time you have taken to review the paper!