Recommendation
based on reviews by 2 anonymous reviewers
The predominant form of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa is mixed crop and livestock production, typically in extensive systems characterised by low productivity and little input (Tui et al., 2021). Such extensive systems experience many challenges, including access to rangeland and other sources of livestock feed, loss of soil quality, increasingly unpredictable climate but also operational constraints such as access to markets and veterinary care.
The work by Gobvu and collaborators (2025) addresses livestock farming sustainability specifically in the context of a Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA). A TFCA is defined as part of an ecological region reaching across boundaries of two or more countries and in which there are protected areas as well as resource use areas. TFCAs are founded to facilitate collective management of resources for the benefit of biodiversity as well as socio-economic development (SADC, 2025).
Livestock farming in TFCAs face additional challenges arising from the tension between biodiversity protection and resource use, such as wildlife predation on livestock, competition between livestock and wildlife for feed and water as well as spread of infections between livestock and wild animals (Matseketsa et al., 2019; Caron et al., 2013; Cumming, 2011).
The paper reports a study that was part of a larger project (EU-ProSuLi project, Caron et al., 2022) aiming at promoting local development and well-being of residents in the Great Limpopo TFCA, with focus on the Sengwe Communal Area in Zimbabwe. The specific aim was to test a methodology for identifying interventions that are aligned with the needs of the local stakeholders (demand-driven interventions. Anticipatory scenario building in the context of workshops was used in combination with individual questionnaires.
Community representatives (n=31) were purposefully selected for their expected ability to act as knowledge brokers. A team of 10 facilitators supported the discussion through plenary and group work sessions. The participants were asked to identify factors of change with impact on local community livelihood, and subsequently to vote to select the most influential factors. Different future states for the year 2038, resulting from the impact of the factors of change, were discussed. In a follow-up workshop, participants were asked to propose activities that would support the development towards the most desirable scenario. In addition, a questionnaire was distributed through semi-structured/structured interviews to 126 households in nine villages.
Results were largely similar and complementary between the two approaches. Preferred interventions were: restocking herds with locally adapted breeds, training in livestock management, marketing support, feed development and value addition, loan schemes for investment in livestock production and support for animal health interventions to reduce the heavy disease burden. Whereas the participatory process is time consuming and requires considerable human resources, it is important to ensure locally relevant interventions are chosen, and it is in itself part of the process towards successful implementation of these interventions.
The study is thoughtfully designed based on previous work by the authors. The paper is well written and has been further improved through the reviewer feedback and revision process.
References
Caron, A., Miguel, E., Gomo, C., Makaya, P., Pfukenyi, D.M., Foggin, C., Hove, T. and de Garine-Wichatitsky, M., 2013. Relationship between burden of infection in ungulate populations and wildlife/livestock interfaces. Epidemiology & Infection, 141 (7), pp.1522-1535. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0950268813000204
Caron, A., Mugabe, P., Bourgeois, R., Delay, E., Bitu, F., Ducrot, R., Fafetine, J., Fynn, R., Guerbois, C., Motsholapheko, M. and Daré, W., 2022. Social-ecological System Health in Transfrontier Conservation Areas to Promote the Coexistence Between People and Nature. One Health Cases. https://doi.org/10.1079/onehealthcases.2022.0005
Cumming, D. H. M. 2011. Constraints to conservation and development success at the wildlife-livestock-human interface in southern African transfrontier conservation areas: a preliminary review. Wildlife Conservation Society, New York. http://www.wcs-ahead.org/workinggrps_kaza.html
Gobvu, V. Ncube, S. Imbayarwo-Chikosi, V.E., Bourgeois, R. Mugabe, P.H. and Caron A. 2025. Preferred livestock interventions for small-scale farmers in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area: a demand-driven and participatory approach. HAL, ver.5 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Animal Science. https://hal.science/hal-04060712
Matseketsa, G., Muboko, N., Gandiwa, E., Kombora, D.M. and Chibememe, G., 2019. An assessment of human-wildlife conflicts in local communities bordering the western part of Save Valley Conservancy, Zimbabwe. Global Ecology and Conservation, 20, p.e00737. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2019.e00737
Tui, S.H.K., Descheemaeker, K., Valdivia, R.O., Masikati, P., Sisito, G., Moyo, E.N., Crespo, O., Ruane, A.C. and Rosenzweig, C., 2021. Climate change impacts and adaptation for dryland farming systems in Zimbabwe: a stakeholder-driven integrated multi-model assessment. Climatic Change, 168 (1-2), p.10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-021-03151-8
South African Development Community. 2025. Transfrontier Conservation Areas. . Consulted 7 January 2025. https://www.sadc.int/pillars/transfrontier-conservation-areas
DOI or URL of the preprint: https://hal.science/hal-04060712
Version of the preprint: 4
Dear editor,
We have addressed all your comments.
Best regards,
AleX on behalf of the authors
, posted 06 Jan 2025, validated 06 Jan 2025Dear Dr Caron,
Thank you for submitting a revised version of your submission. The revision has improved the manuscript, and I believe that with a few additional changes I will be able to recommend it. Please see the list below.
Anna Olsson
General
Reviewer 1 asked to discuss why mainly negative scenarios were presented. I agree with the authors that the Results section is not the right place to do this, but it is still an issue worth developing somewhat in the discussion. In the response to the reviewer, the authors write "Most scenarios ended up with a neutral (i.e. business as usual) or negative scenario. Finally, a scenario can be negative for some stakeholders and positive for others." Please use this to develop a brief reflection in the Discussion.
Specific comments
Line 63 This is the first time the acronym is used in the paper proper (as opposed to in the abstract) and it would be helpful to spell it out here.
Lines 79-80 I suggest "adaptation of these production systems needs to be context specific"
Line 288 "merged" (d missing)
Table 2 "the level of literacy of the people in the area" (typo)
Line 308 "participant" should probably be "participants"
Line 309 "inclusion of all" (of missing)
Line 322 the end of the sentence is missing
Line 436 should read "did local stakeholders become empowered"
Lines 454-456 This sentence is confusing. I suggest "This task is a hard and time-consuming burden for women, requiring them to bring six buckets of 20 litres for each session over sometimes long distances, and may also be a financial burden when women are fined for failing to comply."
Lines 479-480 I suggest "the female dominance in the survey"
Lines 522- 523 I suggest "This has resulted in farmers acquiring"
Line 532 "makes it difficult for farmers to present"
Line 543 A shoat is a newly weaned piglet, but there is no reference to pigs in the paper (and there are no pigs in sub-Saharan Africa as far as I understand)?
Line 564 "restocking" (c missing)
Line 594 I suggest to say "such participatory events will prepare local stakeholders to discuss" instead of "local stakeholders are now prepared to discuss", to make it about the type of intervention more generally rather than about the specific intervention reported in this paper.
DOI or URL of the preprint: https://hal.science/hal-04060712
Version of the preprint: 3
, posted 21 Nov 2024, validated 21 Nov 2024Dear Dr Caron,
Thank you for submitting a revised version of the paper. I acknowledge that the revision has greatly improved the paper, but there are some remaining issues to be addressed. Please see below the reviews.
I will do my best to ensure speedy handling of your submission.
Best regards,
Anna Olsson
Comment from the Managing Board: Authors should have the rights to display the names in their data following a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). If this is the case, information on the GDPR should be added in the manuscript. Otherwise, authors should anonymize the data and contact HAL to remove the file and add a new file without the names. Supp Mat 2 displays names.
The new version of the manuscript is improved and authors respond to each comment of the Two reviewers in a clearly manner.
I accept this version without more modifications
DOI or URL of the preprint: https://hal.science/hal-04060712
Version of the preprint: 2
, posted 13 Mar 2024, validated 13 Mar 2024The paper shows an interesting survey and participatory approach on Livestock to define proper intervention in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area. The study area deserves development of knowledge and identification of good practices and adequate polices to improve livestock farming. Proper actions can be reached with involvement of local population and actors and with adoptions of systemic approaches. An adequate methodology has been presented in the proposed preprint to address information gathering and solution identifications. However, following the reviewer comments, several concerns were raised. The preprint should be revised firstly more detailing the research question. More explicitly should be indicated the role of "demand-driven" approach in reducing the risk of unintended consequences in the short medium future and why it is preferred from other approaches. Then, a revision and restructuration of the paper session is suggested as detailed by the two reviewers. A particular emphasis should be oriented in explaining in detail the terminology, and to enhance the description and properness of terms and definitions, as highlighted by the reviewers, in order to better clarify the local needs and the efficacy of interventions. The work is for sure interesting and original with relevant contribution for local development and should be revised to improve the quality of the result presentation and its replicability.
Alberto Atzori
Comment from the Managing Board: Authors should have the rights to display the names in their data following a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). If this is the case, information on the GDPR should be added in the manuscript. Otherwise, authors should anonymize the data and contact HAL to remove the file and add a new file without the names.
Preferred livestock interventions for small-scale livestock farmers in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier
Conservation Area: a demand-driven and systemic approach
My main concern about this manuscript is that i don't see the scientific question. The manuscript provides information on farmers preferences on interventions, but it is more like a fact than rising questions. The discussion provides some insight of what the methodology used involves change compare to usual way to decide but we have no clue on how intervention would have been plan with out this method. In addition some comments on when top-down policies can be useful or not would have been a good plus value to introduce the need of demand driven interventions. It feels also to me that there is some data missing like the terms of the "vibrant debate" (L.275) : what were the opposition between participants ? And also on the group work : is there ways to identify who is supporting each idea, is there some dominant stakeholder or is each proposal debated and coming from each kind of participant ? And the description of farmers surveyed is also missing some cross dimension description : are the biggests chicken owner are also the biggest cattle owner ? or is there some kind of "specialisation" ? Are the donkeys more present in larger crop farms ?
So the main suggestion is to explicit a research question, maybe just by introducing the previous intervention scheme or those present in other area of Zimbabwe and making an emphasis on the divergeance (or convergeance) between demand and state priorities. An other entry could be to focus on the area constraint and putting hypothesis from litterature on effect of external factors on farmers needs, and discuss how the results founds with your methodology can confirm or not those hypothesis.
Specific comments :
L56-60 : i don't understand the link with the previous sentences : the author start from a livestock decline and then focus on the formulation of local peoples needs : i think the is some missing steps between
L62-64 : "Information" is not specific enough : what kind of information is required : quantitative data ? Preferences of farmers ? Dynamics ? Pressure / opportunities ?
L. 65-67 : Regulation / interventions can be seen at various level according to the topics in my mind : local action are needed but some task can require a national or larger startegy (CAP in Europe, prophylaxis is often conceived at a large scale to be efficient...)
L71-73 : do you have a reference for this sentence ?
L79-83 : that the context that can influence the choice of farmer intervention : it could be explicitely connected to hypothesis. And do you have data or references that will allow you to validate the relation between context and result obtained ? A study in another area for exemple ?
L91-94 : this is not a scientific question, it is a aim for your work but not a way to respond to a lack of scientific knowledge. I agree that the data is not known but what will be the plus value of knowing those interventions demand driven for the scientific community (for Zimbabwe development services it is a precious value, but for researcher what this new knowledge will allow new questions ? )
L107-108 : add the proportion of each type of livelihoods
L114-116 : 2 times Zimbabwe : is that normal ?
L117 : seems to me that the methods is more describe in the work of Bourgeois 2017 but not a big problem)
L136-138 : could you give the number of participant of each category ?
L141-142 : how do you ensure that the farmers acted on behalf of the community and not on their own opinion ?
L154-155 : Is this a novelty of the study : to make a relation between perceive future and changes needed ?
L178 : what is the variability of the number of households per village ?
L180 : 90% value is less than usual value of 95%. It can be understandable as the number of household needed is already high but it should be explain than this ratio is chosen.
L186 : 126 households are more than the half, and up to 94% of them have livestock : so is your assumption (half of the household have livestock) false or did you choose the livestock owners in the village ?
L189-193 : same thing than above : only new information is your sampling of 14 household per village
L210-211 : Meaning is already given previously in the text
L212-215 : There isn't a driving force related to the localisation of the study site (is the governance capacity is related to the proximity to other countries, to the park...)
L222-224 : Is there a reason for livestock to be so central in the change in local livelihoods? Is it the same than in other part of the country or is it a specificity of your case ?
L229 : You only express the vision of the driving forces but no results are presented on the most influenced : why ?
L234-235 : I think the description of the various states possible for the 5 main factors is needed and not only the one for LPS
L239 : forgotten brackets
L251-253 : from where come the water for the "well adapted irrigation" ?
L275 : What was the terms of the debate ? what other scenarios were desired by some members ?
L280-283 : Already said in the M&M
L293 : lack a semi-column
L296-297 : was there an observation of groups to identifiy the proposal leader ? , also there is a "d" instead of a "a" in the sentence
L299 : why is it the LPS group that defined the material needed ?
L312-318 : i would like to have more cross analysis : are those getting more animal of one type are also the one getting more of the other ? how many species there is in one household ? Is there some specialized farms ? Are donkeys more present in crop farms (as they are used to provide labor force)
L320-321 : The percentage of requested intervention on species can be over the percentage of farms having these species : how is it explain ? (exemple : sheep is owned by 8% and 10% ask for intervention on sheep)
Figure 1 : color for sheep and poultry are close on my computer screen
L343-345 : is the those survey participant that were also in the scenario construction ?
L353-356 : explain who expresses which activities
L368-372 : here you could add references on how this fact is commun or a new result compare to other studies in the area. Maybe some references can be found in the book : L'élevage, richesse des pauvres
Stratégies d'éleveurs et organisations sociales face aux risques dans les pays du Sud. 2009.Duteurtre, Faye editors
L393 : the informations on the diseases on the area should had been done in the area description.
L419 : brackets should come before the author name
L422-424 : Same than above : these informations should be givent in the area description
L442 : why Newcastle is in brackets ? and it is not clear for everyone that Newcastle in a disease name
Bibliography :
Caron 2013 is written two times
de Garine-Wichatitsky, M., Miguel, E., Mukamuri, B., Garine-Wichatitsky, E., Wencelius, J., Pfukenyi, D.M. and Caron, A., 2013. => seems to not be cited in the article
L564 : verify the authors citation in text (is PCI want both name in citation when there is only 2 authors ?) And you sometime use & in citation for other citation and also "and" : harmonise citation format
L633 : Sandru or Şandru ? (difference between citation and bibliography