Livelihood Security and Perceived Prevalence of Illegal Activities Threatening Mountain Gorilla Conservation in East Africa’s Virunga Landscape

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Summary-This paper is important work that demonstrates the connections between livelihoods and illegal activities in PA's, specifically Virunga and how it affects mountain gorillas. See overall and specific comments on each section below.

Abstract-Great summary, but the last sentence (line-28-29)shouldn't read as such, better to give a brief example of the implications for conservation.

Intro

Overall-You do an excellent job at covering many of the hardships faced by people living in close proximity to PA's. Sentence construction is done very well. However, the intro is unnecessarily long as some of the info. seems very repetitive and often points are repeated. You can probably rework these sections and make it more concise. Also some of the language sets it up as the community vs. the PA's which can be very inaccurate. Very impressive to see your hypotheses explicitly stated!  Another key thing is that you never mention specifically how any of this affects mountain gorilla conservation!

Line 41-This is a pretty specific statement about PA's being the best way for wildlife preservation-will this is the predominant historical approach, things such as livelihood initiatives are being more considered as contributing to wildlife conservation. I would not be so absolutest as PA's being the "best" model, briefly discuss other approaches and include appropriate references (all of the refs in this sentence are 2014 and prior). You even somewhat state this in the next paragraph, so perhaps collate this information and update.

Line 47-49 HWC is a huge threat to PA's, but a ton of work has been done on this since your citations.

Line 54-You say this began in the 1990's, but state references from the 2000's. Perhaps add one from the earlier movements and adjust.

Line 62-Use caution with words like "demands". Many communities next to PA's have been displaced by creation of the PA, and therefore should expect to have reasonable involvement. Portraying it as a "demand", sets it up as a power dynamic that is not elucidated clearly. I would give similar advice in lines 71-74 as

Line 75-This is a REALLY long (but really great & important) sentence, need to break it down.

Line 85-similar comment to above "illegal access" was probably once not illegal, and residents may have had no say in the creation of the PA where they may have once legally used its resources.

Line 93-This is a bit of a shaky premise. There has been a LOT of work linking livelihoods to crop raiding (just one form of HWC) by various animals and the retaliation against such animals. This needs some rewording or specification.

Line 109-110 This disorganized communities comment reeks of a colonialist attitude!

Starting line 102-In this paragraph you mention that poaching and illegal activities are motivated by poverty-you need to elaborate this more-is the poaching to provide a source of protein for food, is it for sale to large scale illegal operations (similar to ivory trade). Knowing specific motivation is important, especially as it applies to Virunga. You start to approach this in line 119 generally, and in 134, but need to be more specific for study area. For example, in certain parts of East Africa, bushmeat poaching sometimes increases when school fees are due-what are the details in VL.

Line 124-Not the best use to say"according to the literature", make your case then use references.

Line 156, I would leave out "of course" feels to casual

Line 161-163-Crucial point here-would develop or emphasize more and tons of work done on this, so more references.

Line 164-Use caution around the use of "developing countries" in several different contexts-Also HWC is presents in MANY developed nations-it is a global phenomenon but is more prevalent in highly social-ecological systems where communities are more dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods.

Line 177-179-Very important point but feels redundant to what you have already said.

Line 191, redundant last sentence, feels like an afterthought, and can just be incorporated into previous sentence with adjusted citation.

Hypotheses-Good work here! Are H2 and H3 able to be combined? Four hypotheses can be very hard to follow, but good job having them labeled and explicit. Looking at H2 and H3, you also never mention how wood and bamboo are used by the community. Someone not from this area reading your paper may not understand the different uses for each.

Methods

Overall methods-The approach seems to be well constructed. Good job using face-to-face to combat illiteracy. However, one major concern is that you are sampling from two different communities, in two separate areas/parks, though you consolidate and report all of these together. These 2 communities may have completely different problems/issues which can be a form of spatial bias. If you use this approach you need to analyze to determine if there are differences between the responses from the two populations. This will give more validity to the work if there are no significant differences and it is not necessary to treat them as distinct populations. You also do not name or categorize the villages. You concentrate on assessing the measurements which is great, but not whether your populations are independent. If one of the tests you used in fact did this, then it was not clear.

Line 276-279 I would omit and refer to figure.

Figure. Need to have an inset of where this falls within the country and continent. The park graphic itself is great, but words were unreadable-this may just be due to current format.

Line 300-Here is where you should explicitly go over what resources are illegally used by communities and why (see comments above). Their specific circumstances greatly influences their motivation and the entire paper-you touched on it with agriculture-but what else, are they using firewood and collecting it? Does this community benefit from the parks. Your general intro was great, but we need to understand this community more.

Line 318-Why did you use systematic sampling?

Line 326 and 333 come from the same resource--are you basing the study of an approach by this author? Line 326 mentions the measures, but unclear what these are-perhaps you need to refer to one of the tables, but briefly summarize here. Also, not best to say things like "adapted from the literature"

Line 331-You mention 5 point scale initally here but don't identify it as Likert till Line 336. Why did you chose Likert?

Results

Overall results: Good job on results, see specific comments below and reference major comment in methods.

Notes in the tables are quite long-refer to journal guidelines.

Line 358-Are these primarily farmers dependent on crops? How do they make their incomes.

Lines 423-454.  This feels overly verbose. I would summarize by only pointing out the signifcant relationships and refer to results table. The results sections feel like a lot.

Table 5-some formatting issues on titles that can be worked on if accepted

Discussion

Overall-I think this discussion makes very good points, but it feels very disconnected and not structured and missing key elements of a good discussion such as what implications this research provides. See more below.

Line 462-Never a good idea to say "as indicated in results" or the literature. Be very specific. The Sabuhoro paper corroboration should probably come later and talk about other parts of the paper that confirmed or rejected your hypotheses. This whole 1st paragraph reads a little stiff. One approach usually taken is to start with whether your hypotheses were supported or not.

Line 467-This sounds like a much better lead to your discussion-You want to hit the reader with the main take home of what was supported-You seem to have one overall hypotheses that was supported with variation in the more specific ones.

Line 471-Managment implications should be one of the goals of your work-that is why we do what we do! You need to be specific about how your work can inform management strategies or policy and state that early and revisit in near the end of discussion. You also say empirical a lot :)

Line 469-Here is another "support" comment that should be grouped with the one I previously mentioned and others in one select place further down in discussion.

Line 484-Why are food constraints more likely to increase wood cutting? Is it being used to sell illegal charcoal? You mention for commercial purposes in line 486, are they selling it for general firewood? Help us make the connections.

Line 489-491-Here is some of the info that would have helped in introduction, I would move this there and then you can validate this point in discussion

Line 506-First mention of this 5% project-would help to know that earlier, and again confirm here.

Line 526-Here you talk about results from  your study being consistent with several others, but in the beginning you talked about this study addressing a key gap-Here you seem to argue that is not the case so I recommend being very specific in what you are trying to determine from your intro. I do think it means there should be a change in governance policies, but here is where you can make specific recommendations.

Conclusions-

Line 547-limitations are better in your discussion

The title of your paper includes mountain gorillas-we both know the issue is poaching-but you never in the paper directly connect these two together. You don't mention mountain gorillas hardly at all in the paper and the implications for gorilla conservation should have been at least in the discussion if not the conclusions as well. Better not to end a paper with more research is needed; you need clear next steps.

This has potential to be a great paper if you can address the flaw with the sampling (are these really one population of respondents or two?) focus your writing on the conservation and management implications, and create more conciseness and flow within the paper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

"Please see the attachment"

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I have read the manuscript entitled “Livelihood Security and Perceived Prevalence of Illegal Activities Threatening Mountain Gorilla Conservation in East Africa’s Virunga Landscape” by Edwin Sabuhoro and colleagues, submitted to the Land magazine. I think, it is interesting and well written manuscript on problems on conservation of mountain gorillas, e.g. influence of illegal human activities across the Virunga Landscape.
The used statistical analyses are not easy, thus for numerous readers, especially for conservationists, the manuscript could be difficult to read. Of course, it is not a accusation –for the study or the manuscript; simply, I think that result of the study could be interesting for wider audience, but the manuscript could be too difficult for not scientists. Thus, please consider to add a “Simple Summary” for the manuscript – I know that some MDPI magazines allow to add such part.
I have some specific comments, which could help to improve the manuscript.

Specific comments:
The full stop on the end of the title is not necessary.

What is ‘CI’? I believe, that a confidence interval, however, it should be stated (in the text, and in the table legends).
The same for “CFI”, “RMSEA”. All used abbreviation should be explained, in the text.

In numerous places in the manuscript, there is lack of ‘0’ values. For example, lines 365-366: “The CFA model for livelihood security indicated a good model fit [S-Bc2 = 312.54, df = 71, p < .001, CFI = .95, RMSEA = .07 (95% CI, .06 - .08)].”
Change ‘.001’ to ‘0.001’, ‘.07’ to ‘0.07’, ‘.06 - .08’ to ‘0.06–0.08’. It will be easier to read the values.

Typically, in the biological sciences, 95% CI values are used. In the text, sometimes 95%, but mostly 90% CI are used. In all cases 95% CI values should be presented, or it should be stated why 90% are used, I think.

Please forgive me for my possible misunderstanding, but I am not sure, why the abbreviation ‘M(SD)’ is used [e.g. line 391: “M(SD) = Mean value (standard error of mean value”]. Abbreviation for a standard error is SE, not ‘SD’ (SD is for standard deviation). Is it different value from ‘typical’ standard error? If yes, it should be stated. If no, the more typical abbreviation is recommended.

Figure 1. The quality of the figure is not enough, I think.
Additionally, a better legend (e.g. what is in green / in blue colour) is recommended.

Table 4. Variable Correlations. – I have found no information, if the values are statistically significant. Even basic information in the subject would be useful for readers.

Table 5. should be corrected. Now, the words “Hypotheses” and “Conclusion” are it two lines (i.e., ‘s” and ‘n’ are separated). In the headline there is “P” (a capital letter), but it the table legend “p = p- value showing the statistical significance of the hypothesis testing result”. It could be confusing for readers. What more, typically if p is less than 0.05 we reject the null hypothesis. Here, it is opposite – see the column conclusion. Why? It could be confusing for readers, also. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

In the manuscript entitled "Livelihood Security and Perceived Prevalence of Illegal Activities Threatening Mountain Gorilla Conservation in East Africa’s Virunga Landscape.", authors adressed the causes and prevalence of illegal activities threatening mountaing gorilla in Virunga Lndscape. In general the manuscript is well written, the methods are well described and the conclusions are supported by results. In my opinion, the objective of the work is clear and it is well adressed. I do not feel qualified to judge English, but without an opinion about language. I consider this anuscript is suitable for Land and can be of interest for readers.

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Rev Land

Good manuscript. Well written and with many points of strength. I like this type of manuscript. Topic is of high conservation concern and I think that this ms deserves to be piblshed on Land, as soon as possible, for its potential effect on the conservation efforts. I have only MINOR REVISIONS to suggest.

Section 3.2. I think it should be named only ‘Data analysis’.

Rows 540 and following: ‘Understanding the relationships between illegal activities and household livelihoods will help inform policy and equip protected area managers with the information needed to make better decisions, revise strategies, and make better household livelihood investments’. In this regards, I think that the logic of threat analysis conceptual framework  should be added (In: Salafsky, N., Salzer, D., Stattersfield, A. J., Hilton‐Taylor, C. R. A. I. G., Neugarten, R., Butchart, S. H., ... & Wilkie, D. (2008). A standard lexicon for biodiversity conservation: unified classifications of threats and actions. Conservation Biology, 22(4), 897-911). This approch could help the managers to define clear causal chains (driving forces-threats-conservation targets). Also a logic of project could be useful (see Battisti, C., Amori, G., & Luiselli, L. (2020). Toward a new generation of effective problem solvers and project-oriented applied ecologists. Web Ecology, 20(1), 11-17.). I am a wildlife manager and I think that these two references may be added.

In the conclusion I would like to add something abut the role of ‘wise people’ and indigenous experience (for example, see: Samways, M. J. (2007). Rescuing the extinction of experience. Biodiversity and Conservation, 16(7), 1995-1997.)

Some references lack authors: for example, row 580.

Row 600. There is a ‘yellow’ at the end of row.

Rows 674, 675, 713: there are white rows.

Add the role of anonymous reviewers in the Acknowledgments.

A further check of English style and language may be necessary.

I would like to read a new revised version of this ms.

Have a nice work.

Author Response

"Please see the attachment."

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Great job addressing all the concerns. Please check sentence type-o in line 55.

Author Response

Thank you for the opportunity to revise the manuscript

We revised the manuscript and took care of minor spelling errors.

We checked and revised the sentence on line 55