Weather and resource information as tools for dealing with farmer&ndash;pastoralist conflicts in the Sahel

Mertz, Ole; Rasmussen, Kjeld; Rasmussen, Laura Vang

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-969-2016

Articles | Volume 7, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-969-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

Climate, land use, and conflict in Africa

https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-7-969-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 7, issue 4

Research article

|

13 Dec 2016

Research article |

| 13 Dec 2016

Weather and resource information as tools for dealing with farmer–pastoralist conflicts in the Sahel

Ole Mertz, Kjeld Rasmussen, and Laura Vang Rasmussen

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Final revised paper (published on 13 Dec 2016)
Preprint (discussion started on 17 May 2016)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Farming and herding conflict', Ced Hesse, 29 May 2016
- AC1: 'Reply to review by Ced Hesse', Ole Mertz, 21 Jul 2016
RC2: 'Contextualising conflicts between farmers and pastoralists: The role of information technology', Christian Webersik, 08 Jun 2016
- AC2: 'Reply to referee C. Webersik', Ole Mertz, 21 Jul 2016
RC3: 'Climate and resource information as tools for dealing with farmer-pastoralist conflicts in the Sahel', Anonymous Referee #3, 21 Jun 2016
- AC3: 'Reply to anonymous reviewer #3', Ole Mertz, 21 Jul 2016
RC4: 'Climate and resource information as tools for dealing with farmer-pastoralist conflicts in the Sahel', Anonymous Referee #4, 03 Jul 2016
- AC4: 'Reply to anonymous reviewer #4', Ole Mertz, 21 Jul 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (15 Aug 2016) by Tim Brücher

AR by Ole Mertz on behalf of the Authors (26 Sep 2016) Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (04 Oct 2016) by Tim Brücher

RR by Anonymous Referee #4 (25 Oct 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Some relevant points highlighted by the referees have been addressed by the authors. However much of the author response is still in vague terms, using conditional wording (we can make, we will consider, etc.), leaving it open whether the points have actually been addressed or not yet.
In the following a listing of these vague terms of the authors is given, with the request to the authors to clarify and specify more precisely whether, how and where these points have been addressed. Comments by this reviewer are given in brackets […] It is recommended that suggestions by the reviewer are implemented to the degree possible.

Selected author responses with vague terms highlighted and referee comments in brackets [..] where clarification and specification is needed:

Ced Hesse:

1) a. We agree that this is a crucial element and this COULD be done … We have tried to expand this part of the paper although there is relatively limted research available.[Was the attempt successful?]
2) a. …We CAN – with caution – integrate this in the text…. [Was it integrated?]
3) a. We CAN easily explain the concept of zoning and how it is done differently by governments or by pastoralists themselves.[Please do]

C. Webersik:

1) a. We agree that this is an important issue and we CAN add some lines …. This will of course be based on other sources. We are not sure whether it will be possible to integrate this in 3.1, but it can be a discussion point related to the ‘new’ conflict between the government institutions disseminating information and users that are affected by information.
2) a. Phones are mainly used for voice-based information exchange, especially since there is still high illiteracy among pastoralists. We CAN add a sentence about this.
3) a. We CAN integrate the ideas in Müller et al 2015 [please do]

Anonymous referee #3:

1) a. … We were somewhat hesitant about getting too much into these larger-scale conflicts, but acknowledge that political issues also affect the small-scale conflicts. [Yes do]
4) a. …We CAN add some methodological reflections in the conclusion as this topic definitely requires more substantial field based research across a range of different stakeholders. [Good to mention in text]
6) a. It is not our intention to say that farmers and pastoralists have the same needs – but they can use the same types of information for their specific (and often different) needs. We hope this comes across in the paper, but we will of course DOUBLE CHECK that it does. [Address a little more the reviewer’s request to explain the different information needs.]
7) a. …We CAN make these issues more clear in the paper. [Would be great]
8) a. We will CONSIDER whether the figure and its caption CAN be reworked to not signal a strict quantitative approach, but rather an overview of responses, e.g. in Table form. [Clarify what and where it is done.]
10 ….As mentioned above, we have rephrased to use ‘weather’ rather than climate in the analytical part of the paper as this is what the information systems we deal with are about.[This is not without problems as climate change is one of the core issue of this special issue of ESD. If you focus now on weather rather than climate, then it is important to explain the distinction regarding information needs and capacities for weather and climate. Further it is important to highlight how the information in your case study is actually climate-relevant.]

Anonymous referee #4:

1) a. But point taken that more of the peer-reviewed literature COULD be cited here [Did you and which?]
2) a. We CAN indeed add more citations to this section, but perhaps the referee could point us to some key references. [Rather than making prescriptions which papers to cite, the authors may check themselves for recent papers on climate-conflict linkages in the Sahel, which may not be a core issue for this paper but is relevant in the frame of this special issue of ESD. As a start the authors may check for other papers in this special issue or recent PNAS articles and publications cited there.]
6) a. We are not entirely sure what is meant here, but we CAN work on sharpening the research questions [Did you and how? Otherwise state differently.]
7) a. We will CONSIDER presenting the figure and caption in a different way or at least make it clear that we know it is not a representative sample [Did you?].
8) a. …We WILL SEE if more information can be derived from the discussions at the workshop that were also recorded. We do not really see the need to develop this as a full research question. [Was it addressed in the text?]
10) a … We CAN try to elaborate on this latter difference. [Did you and how?]
11) a. … Yes, we CAN add some more comments to this [Did you add and where?]
13) a. Good idea, but we are NOT ENTIRELY SURE how to construct such a table without making some unfounded simplifications.[It is worth a try to condense and summarize results in tabular form.]

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by Editor) (08 Nov 2016) by Tim Brücher

AR by Ole Mertz on behalf of the Authors (08 Nov 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (17 Nov 2016) by Tim Brücher

AR by Ole Mertz on behalf of the Authors (17 Nov 2016)

Short summary

Conflicts over land and water resources between livestock herders and farmers are common in the Sahelian region of Africa. In this paper we show that improved information on weather, grazing areas, and water resources may reduce the level of conflict if communicated in such a way so that not too many livestock herds go to the same areas. However, if this information is not accompanied by information on herd crowding and potential conflict areas, it may lead to more conflict.