Assessing the Impact of Charcoal Production on Southern Angolan Miombo and Mopane Woodlands

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

-The introduction is not well written, there are no arguments that properly support the hypothesis of the paper. 

-The goals of your work are very general. It is better to state a series of more specific goals.

-The parts of the paper in the introduction are related to the materials and methods section.

Please revise it.

-Remove additional and irrelevant explanations.

-There is very little research background to the manuscript. Please use up-to-date studies.

In the materials and methods section, you checked DBH ≥ 5cm. what is the reason? Add reference.

-Revise the Materials and Methods section

-I would like to see more support for why would you used this research

-The research aims  should be fully supported by the preceding text. The aims should be such that the results can be objectively evaluated

-Try to write a strong and specific discussion

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The manuscript needs minor revision

Author Response

Dear Editor

We are pleased to resubmit the revised version of “Assessing the impact of charcoal production on southern Angolan Miombo and Mopane woodlands” to be considered for publication in Forests. We have conducted a major re-writing of the manuscript following the referee’s comments. We have addressed all the comments as outlined below. You can find in bold the reviewer’s comments and our responses below.

Best whishes

 

Sergio Chozas, on behalf of all the authors

 

Reviewer 1

-The introduction is not well written, there are no arguments that properly support the hypothesis of the paper.

-The goals of your work are very general. It is better to state a series of more specific goals.

-The parts of the paper in the introduction are related to the materials and methods section. Please revise it.

Following your comments 1, 2 and 3, we have revised the introduction including, as suggested, more details to support our hypothesis (lines 63-69) and we have also detailed our aims (lines 102-109). We expected that Miombo and Mopane plant communities are impacted considerably by charcoal exploration, and we aimed to characterise the community dynamics of Miombo and Mopane vegetation after selective charcoal cutting by studying the changes in the structure and composition of the woody plant communities occurring in charcoal fallows with different ages.

 

-Remove additional and irrelevant explanations.

Done (lines 81-86)

 

-There is very little research background to the manuscript. Please use up-to-date studies.

You are right but, in fact, few work has been done on this subject. However, we have included all the work we found regarding this issue developed in different Angolan regions, namely in Kwanza Sul by Sanfilippo 2014 [38] and Sanfilippo 2014 [39], Bengo by Mande 2017 [40], Bié by Gonçalves et al., 2019 [41] and Chiteculo et al., 2018 [42], and Huambo by, Miapia et al., 2021 [24], Bahu [43] and Chiteculo et al., 2018 [44]. We also included the works developed under the FAOSTAT [45] and FAO [36] projects. Additionally, we include some recent studies from other African regions, namely Mensah et al., 2022[19], Sedano et al., 2016 [20], Doggart et al., 2017 [21], Branch et al., 2022 [22], Nyarko et al., 2021 [23], Chidumayo 2019 [25], Chidumayo 2019 [26], Kalaba et al., 2013 [27] and reports as FAO, 2021 [36] and FAOSTAT [45]. Finally, we included older but relevant literature such as Chidumayo, 1991 [92], Chidumayo and Dumbo, 2010 [6], Godlee et al., 2020 [73] and Zigelski et al., 2019 [74], among others.

 

In the materials and methods section, you checked DBH ≥ 5cm. what is the reason? Add reference.

We measured individuals with DBH >5cm following the same approach used in Angola and developed/applied within the context of the TFO and the SASSCAL projects focused on forestry studies (see Oldeland et al., 2013 [51] and Gonçalves et al., 2021 [52]; see also Wallenfang et al., 2015 [33], Godlee et al., 2020 [73] and Chisingui et al., 2018 [88]) Using this previously tested methodology also enables us to compare our findings with those found by these projects.

 

Revise the Materials and Methods section.

I would like to see more support for why would you used this research

Our goal in this study was to determine how the structure and composition of woody plant communities are affected by the cutting down of trees for charcoal exploration. To achieve this, and as we have previously mentioned, we sampled wood vegetation using the methodology proposed by Oldeland et al., 2013 [51]. Afterwards, we performed multivariate analyses to describe the woody plant communities resulting from the tree cutting. Finally, we assessed the relationships among a set of exploratory variables and the dynamics of vegetation regeneration by correlating these variables with the NMDS ordination (see Chozas et al. 2015 [63] and Chozas et al., 2021 [64] for details). Using this method, we were able to study how the plant selection for charcoal production affected the composition and structure of the vegetation in the two most significant forest vegetation types found in central and southern Angola.

 

-The research aims should be fully supported by the preceding text. The aims should be such that the results can be objectively evaluated.

See previous comments. We have updated the introduction to include, as recommended, additional information to support our hypothesis (lines 63-69) as well as a more detailed description of our objectives (lines 102-109).

 

-Try to write a strong and specific discussion

Done

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript presents an analysis of data on the dynamics of forest restoration after their use. I had a few comments and questions to the authors.

- specify the exact goal and write clear research objectives

- Line 366-370. References?

 

Author Response

Dear Editor

We are pleased to resubmit the revised version of “Assessing the impact of charcoal production on southern Angolan Miombo and Mopane woodlands” to be considered for publication in Forests. We have conducted a major re-writing of the manuscript following the referee’s comments. We have addressed all the comments as outlined below. You can find in bold the reviewer’s comments and our responses below.

Best whishes

 

Sergio Chozas, on behalf of all the authors

 

Reviewer 2

The manuscript presents an analysis of data on the dynamics of forest restoration after their use. I had a few comments and questions to the authors.

 

- specify the exact goal and write clear research objectives

Done. We have included a more detailed description of our objectives (lines 102-109). Now it reads: “In summary, the plant communities of the Miombo and Mopane forests could be severely affected by wood extraction for charcoal production since this activity may compromise species regeneration and productivity. Thus, this study aims to analyze the changes in the composition and structure of woody plant communities located in fallows abandoned after cutting for charcoal production. This was carried out by assessing the recovery dynamics of Miombo and Mopane charcoal fallows with different ages: recent fallows (<10 years), intermediate fallows (10–20 years), and mature plots (>20 years) in southwestern Angola. “

 

- Line 366-370. References?

Done, now it reads: “Most of Angola's forest resources arise from the dry tropical forests and woodlands, known as Mopane and Miombo, which constitute more than half of the country's total forest area (MINUA, 2006) [71]. The extensive use and exploitation of wood forest resources involves environmental, social, and economic impacts (IEA, 2006 [35], Gonçalves et al., 2019 [41])”

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Editor and Authors,

The manuscript's subject is strongly relevant as it is related to the assessment of the dynamics of woodlands regeneration after the selective cutting of tree species for charcoal production. The manuscript is of scientific and practical importance and is written to a high quality. A large mass of data is presented and analyzed, which is important for the management of the natural resources of the region.

Some comments that may improve the quality of the manuscript.

1) The authors are recommended to provide the requirements of woody biomass for charcoal production, if available for the woodlands considered.

2) The Young trees part of Table 3 needs to be corrected. The parameters are duplicated there. Additionally, Table 3 should be mentioned in the manuscript text.

3) Do not use 'we' and 'our' in the manuscript text. Scientific publications are written in the third person.

4) Do not end the section with Table 4.

5) There are technical and grammatical errors in the manuscript. Moreover, page numbering is wrong.

Author Response

Dear Editor

We are pleased to resubmit the revised version of “Assessing the impact of charcoal production on southern Angolan Miombo and Mopane woodlands” to be considered for publication in Forests. We have conducted a major re-writing of the manuscript following the referee’s comments. We have addressed all the comments as outlined below. You can find in bold the reviewer’s comments and our responses below.

Best whishes

 

Sergio Chozas, on behalf of all the authors

 

Reviewer 3

The manuscript's subject is strongly relevant as it is related to the assessment of the dynamics of woodlands regeneration after the selective cutting of tree species for charcoal production. The manuscript is of scientific and practical importance and is written to a high quality. A large mass of data is presented and analyzed, which is important for the management of the natural resources of the region.

Some comments that may improve the quality of the manuscript.

 

1) The authors are recommended to provide the requirements of woody biomass for charcoal production, if available for the woodlands considered.

The conversion of woody biomass in charcoal depends on several factors, such as the type of kiln the experience of the charcoal maker, and the quality of wood. For instance Chiteculo et al (2018) [42] refers a conversion factor of 0.19.

Recent data from a submitted MS of our team (Kissanga et al, article in revision) [81] points to consider an estimated efficiency of 0.14 in the conversion of wood biomass in charcoal in our study area.

 

2) The Young trees part of Table 3 needs to be corrected. The parameters are duplicated there. Additionally, Table 3 should be mentioned in the manuscript text.

Done

 

3) Do not use 'we' and 'our' in the manuscript text. Scientific publications are written in the third person.

Done

 

4) Do not end the section with Table 4.

Done

 

5) There are technical and grammatical errors in the manuscript. Moreover, page numbering is wrong.

Done.

Regarding the page numbering, you are right. We used the Forests template and we do not know how to fix this error.