Landscape Governance and Sustainable Land Restoration: Evidence from Shinyanga, Tanzania

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a unique and detailed assessment of landscape democracy and sustainable land restoration that revolves around a case study of ngitili indigenous fodder reserve systems in Shinyanga, Tanzania. The authors present a comprehensive evaluation of development efforts in this area using both qualitative and quantitative evidence. They even claim this is a "complete discussion" (p. 2). Though the paper provides insights on decentralization, environmental governance and the interactions between local users and higher-level agencies, there is little focus to the analysis.

  For instance, the abstract alone states that project assessed six different good governance principles and then also examined landscape democracy dimensions, criteria and indicators. This makes the entire paper very complicated and confusing. Moreover, they find that pretty much all of these principles and/or indicators contributed to success. These are not very compelling results. All the tables, figures and text show only very small differences between groups and among variables.

  In some cases, their discussion of these results becomes very difficult to follow. For instance, on p. 16 in Sec. 4.1.5 the authors state "The presence of a well-defined informal governance system in the Shinyanga landscape enabled actors in the restoration process; however, to a lesser extent, compared to other governance aspects (Figure 2)". Figure 2 is actually the map of the study region. Maybe this refers to Table 2 . . .  Even Table 2 has its issues. Some cells are highlighted in gray, but the significance is not explained.

This reader had trouble understanding the relationships among key themes of the study. A photo and more thorough description of ngitili systems would help. Also, what is the role of HASHI in ngitili? Were these fodder systems the only development intervention they initiated? Table 3 actually contributes more to this confusion because it features too many stakeholders for a reader to track. 

The map (Figure 2) could be used much more effectively. Why are some of the districts dark gray and one light gray? Showing the location of participating villages and indicating important features such as roads, regional capitals, etc. could provide some explanation for Table 4. Localities that have the most missing actors are likely those that are most remote.

Some of the interpretations of the literature cited that the authors use to motivate their analysis are incorrect. For instance, on p. 2 of the Introduction, the section reads, "It is projected that billions of dollars are disbursed globally on restoration projects, and countless of these projects are unsuccessful [4,5,6]." In the abstract of [4] by De Groot et al. (2013) clearly reads the opposite - ". . . the majority of the restoration projects we analyzed provided net benefits and should be considered not only as profitable but also as high-yielding investments." The authors should be more careful.

All in all, this paper has merit. A small case study based on focus groups across 14 communities with men, women and youth provided a great deal of novel data for analysis. Some of the figures and tables provide important insights, but there is simply too much analysis. As pointed out above, most of these show little or no differences between groups or among communities. The overall study lacks focus and moves from one topic to the next with little structure or logic. Presenting less data and analysis but in a more focused and cogent manner would make this compelling study more robust and provide more substantial scholarly insights.

Author Response

Re-submission of Manuscript number sustainability-1237350

Dear reviewer,

We are deeply grateful for the comments and suggestions which have significantly improved our article. We have addressed all the comments in the attached document. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Overall this is solid paper evaluating the internal governance aspects of a long-running restoration that has achieved considerable success through collaborative and democratic processes. The paper does a good job of analyzing these restoration efforts.

The authors do not apply sufficient attention to the fact, noted in the Table 5 on page 14, that many of the Ngitilis are declining due to urban growth and broad apparently broad changes in economic strategies and landscapes. So while the lessons for democratization are useful and important, the authors leave unaddressed questions of viability in the face of broader socio-economic changes. In particular, are these broader change also linked to the success? Without this, it is difficult to determine what should we make of the overall potential f these systems into the future? This suggest the need to add more dynamism to the conceptual model.

The paper need substantial editing, perhaps for English language. Wile it is readable and understandable, there are many missing articles, a few grammatical errors, and some awkward sentences.

Author Response

Re-submission of Manuscript number sustainability-1237350

Dear reviewer,

We are deeply grateful for the comments and suggestions which have significantly improved our article. We have addressed all the comments in the attached document. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The article presents a case study from the Tanzanian region of Shinyanga and focuses on a long-term landscape restoration project. The importance attributed in the study to local communities is particularly noticeable, as well as the problematisation of different aspects of landscape management, particularly the ngitili.

I do not think it is necessary to make too many objections, as I find the article methodologically solid. However, I offer a few comments below.

Lines 74-76. The author(s) write(s): "Involving local communities and individuals increases a sense of responsibility to restore and rehabilitate by giving them rights to benefit...".
I agree, but I think it is necessary to stress that it is also a question of respect for the people involved and for their ways of dwelling in their own world, as well as for the use and deep meanings locally attributed to the environment.

Lines 96-98. Actually, there is an error in the description of the structure. It is said that "section 2 presents the conceptual framework", while in fact it is called "Context" and the conceptual framework is described in section 3.

Lines 113-117. It may be of interest to readers to cite a study of the ecological history of this region.

Lines 118-125. The ngitili system, central to the study, is perhaps little explored. Some ethnographic studies might be worth mentioning.

Lines 119-121. The author(s) write(s): “Ngitilis encourage trees to be conserved or planted in the grazing lands to increase fodder supply during the dry season”.
This statement is quite problematic, as it contradicts the socio-environmental history cited above.

In section 3.2 Study area, I believe that the social context should be better specified. For example: what is the main indigenous language spoken in the region? It might be interesting to cite some work that socio-historically and culturally contextualises the group, considering that the participation of local actors is of transcendental importance in the paper.

Lines 252-254. The sentence is not clear.

Line. 263. Repetition of the word "and".

Line 456. Ngtitilis, with a capital letter.

Author Response

Re-submission of Manuscript number sustainability-1237350

Dear reviewer,

We are deeply grateful for the comments and suggestions which have significantly improved our article. We have addressed all the comments in the attached document. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

It is not possible to effectively read the revised manuscript. It consists only of tracked changes. The problematic tables are not even formatted and you have to wade through pages and pages of unformatted text. The authors should provide a clean new and properly formatted revised manuscript before this reviewer is willing to actually evaluate their effort. This is sloppy and a disservice to scholars who take reviewing articles seriously.