PCLM-D-24-00218

Adaptive capacity in Pacific Islands: responding to coastal and climatic change in Nagigi village, Fiji

PLOS Climate

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria?>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?-->?>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Review of ‘Adaptive capacity in Pacific Islands … Nagigi village, Fiji’

For PLOS Climate

General comments

This is a solid study, well researched, meaning that a robust set of data was collected and sensible conclusions drawn from them. I recommend it is accepted for publication after minor changes.

In the Review of adaptation capacity in the Pacific Islands, you should mention (in my view) the fact that island peoples have been adapting for millennia, something especially needed in small-island contexts. You represent adaptation in this paper as something novel and, even though the adaptive challenges may be novel and unprecedented, the notion of island people adapting is not.

I think the word Indigenous should not be uncritically used in a Pacific Islands context. In Fiji, iTaukei seems fine as it is a socio-cultural reference but Indigenous Fijian is not merely exclusory but also very specific (in the Vola ni Kawa Bula). Why not just iTaukei Fijian? Or Fijian?

The whole issue of gender seems to bubble beneath the surface in this manuscript but never becomes really visible – but I think it is important to mention explicitly in at least a couple of places. For instance, did the fact that the two iTaukei researchers on the team were female influence its interaction with the communities – because everyone who has worked in such communities knows it does – for example, see (McKenzie et al. 2022; Pearson, McNamara, and Nunn 2019). This is not a criticism per se, but really just a call to explain how you worked around this.

The difficulties of relocation are expressed very much from a western perspective in my view, not really acknowledging what often happens in rural Pacific Islands which is that relationality invariably wins out over laws governing land ownership. Maybe the researchers asked the wrong people the wrong questions, but it surprises me that they did not detect any instance of relationship-enabled relocation which is widespread in Cakaudrove, especially along the north side of Natewa Bay.

The issue of tabu is well discussed (p 12 and elsewhere) but there are other practices deserving mention, not least the famed Yavirau at Nagigi (last Christmas).

Minor comments

Page 2, line 5 – make it clear you are talking about coastal communities in developing countries (?) because in developed countries few depend on local ecosystems – a bit more context needed here.

I urge the authors to remove all the Howevers from their text. It disrupts the flow and they are unnecessary.

I recommend Bia-i-Cake not Bia-I-Cake (I means of).

Page 2, lines 19-20 – I don’t think you should assert (without qualification) that food insecurity arises only from climate and/or environmental changes. There is quite a lot of this kind of assertion in the paper and I think some readers may question the links if you don’t explain them.

Page 2, line 23 – maybe ‘understand’ is a bit patronizing.

Page 3, line 16 –also cite the more recent work by Nunn and others (2024)

Page 8, line 38 – surely explain what totems are

Page 11, line 44 – I wouldn’t report hearsay as fact. I think this point is emphasised too much – communities have work-arounds to get the message through to delinquent uncles catching undersized fish without putting nephews in the firing line.

Page 12, line 36 – and explain what tabua are used for in this context.

Page 13, line 25 – surely Tui Cakau

References

McKenzie, B. L., G. Waqa, A. C. Hart, A. M. Silatolu, A. Palagyi, R. Norton, R. McLean, and J. Webster. 'Gender roles, generational changes and environmental challenges: an intersectional interpretation of perceptions on healthy diets among iTaukei women and men in Fiji'. Public Health Nutrition 25 (11) (2022): 3146-3157.

Nunn, P. D., R. Kumar, H.B. Barrowman, L. Chambers, L. Fifita, D. Gegeo, C. Gomese, S. McGree, A. Rarai, K. Cheer, D. Esau, O. Fa'anunu, T. Fong, M. Fong-Lomavatu, P Geraghty, T. Heorake, E. Kekeubata, I. Korovulavula, E. Kubunavanua, S. Lui, D. MacLaren, P. Malsale, S. Nemani, R.D. Plotz, G. Puairana, J. Rantes, L. Singh-Peterson, and M. Waiwai. 'Traditional knowledge for climate resilience in the Pacific Islands'. WIREs-Climate Change (2024): e882.

Pearson, J., K.E. McNamara, and P.D. Nunn. 'Gender-specific perspectives of mangrove ecosystem services: case study from Bua Province, Fiji Islands'. Ecosystem Services 38 (2019): #100970.

Reviewer #2: Overall:

This is a clearly written, well-structured, interesting, and insightful paper, that adds to the current literature on both the nature of adaptive capacity and to discussions about Pacific vulnerability and capacity to respond to the impacts of climate change. I have made some minor suggestions to improve the paper, below, mostly around making explicit some of the decisions about the research approach and logic. Overall I really enjoyed it. I’m sorry that I was not able to review this paper sooner, and I look forward to citing this once it is published.

Specific comments:

INTRODUCTION

Page 2, lines 17-22: The introduction would be strengthened by spelling out why this research was looking at this issue in this location. This could be done by outlining the specific research question/s that this paper or research sought to address, or through adding a sentence or two outlining the focus on women and Indigenous knowledges (as indicated on page 6, lines 23-24).

LITERATURE REVIEW: ADAPTIVE CAPACITY IN THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

Page 3, lines 5-7: This sentence isn’t quite clear – suggest swapping the order of “past experiences with water stress” and “belief in ability to manage”. If I’ve understood and that new version works, then I suggest using that sentence formation instead; if I’ve misunderstood and that configuration doesn’t make sense, then another rejigging of the sentence will be needed.

Page 3, line 28: this paragraph (or possibly the discussion section on page 15) could benefit from including this paper, to acknowledge that while necessary, adaptive capacity itself is insufficient to guarantee that adaptation actually takes place: Mortreux, C., O’Neill, S., & Barnett, J. (2020). Between adaptive capacity and action: new insights into climate change adaptation at the household scale. Environmental Research Letters, 15(7), 074035. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab7834.

STUDY SITE AND METHODS

Study site: Nagigi village and Bia-I-Cake settlement

In this section, it’s not always clear whether the descriptions apply only to Nagigi, or whether these include the other settlements – for example, is the population of Bia-I-Cake in addition to the population of Nagigi, or a subset?

Page 4, lines 21-22: Here, please clarify whether the 2 churches, meeting hall, tank and school are in Nagigi, or Bia-I-Cake, or across both.

Page 5, Figure 1: It would be useful in the figure to make it clear where the other five smaller settlements are – are they on the bottom map but not identified, or are they beyond the boundaries of the bottom map? This could be done by retitling the Figure to something like “Map of Fiji (top) and Nagigi village and surrounding settlements with Bia-I-Cake identified (bottom)”.

It would also be useful to add a sentence to this section to explain why participants from Bia-I-Cake were included and not from the other 5 surrounding settlements – I infer from the examples below that this is because of the UNDP GEF Small Grants project that the women’s group implemented, but it would be good to be explicit about this.

Methods

Page 6, line 1: Please add a few words to make it clear that such methods were used in this case – something like “Such methods were employed in this study, in which qualitative data collection included…”

Page 6, lines 9-15: It’s not clear where this list of themes that guided the discussion came from. There’s no mention of Covid-19 in the literature review or introduction, and likewise the focus on women, women’s resilience and women-led adaptation efforts have not been introduced. The focus of the paper on these issues needs to be included in the paper’s introduction (as above), and a relevant sentence or two on each added to the literature review. An additional sentence here to explain the selection of these themes here would also strengthen the paper’s logic.

Page 6, lines 23-24: as above, a version of this sentence should be further up, in the second paragraph of this section.

Page 6, table 2: This Table isn’t as useful/clear as it could be. There are a number of ways to rejig this to make the information more accessible and I don’t think it’s important to prescribe the specific format, but two principles that would help: 1) in general, the information that’s currently in brackets needs to be its own column or row (this will mean adding rows/columns); and 2) totals should go at the end (i.e. if there’s a column for the total number of participants, this should be the furthest right hand column, not the middle column as it is currently).

Page 6, lines 32-34: I’m not clear on what “adaptation purposively investigated variables” means – please add some detail to explain.

Page 6, lines 32-34: As with above, how and why were these three pre-identified themes selected? They don’t seem to match clearly with the Talanoa discussion themes, or with the literature as outlined. The dimensions of adaptive capacity – i.e. the analytic structure of the findings section - have been clearly identified in the literature review, but the two sets of themes informing the methods are not so well outlined (e.g. are there two? Or is this the same set of themes? This shouldn’t be unclear).

As per below, somewhere in the methods section – possibly as the introduction or the conclusion – it would be useful to spell out what the research purpose was (i.e. you undertook these methods in order to …?).

FINDINGS: ADAPTIVE CAPACITY IN NAGIGI VILLAGE

Page 7, lines 15-19: it would be useful to add some details on the locations within Fiji for those who are not familiar – for example, to note how far away Savusavu and Labasa are from Nigigi, and to indicate that Vanua Levu and Viti Levu are Fiji’s two ‘big’ islands.

Page 8, line 1: Please specify where these residents had been during the pandemic (or whether ‘following’ is used here to mean ‘as a result of’ rather than ‘after’) – particularly given on the next page you talk about residents returning at the start of the pandemic.

Page 9, lines 22-3: please add brackets with a concise description of ‘Vanua structure’. I would suggest deleting the brackets that include i.e. Tui Ni Sa, Tui Ni Yavusa, Marama Ni Yavusa, and to add a square bracket explanation of the Tui Ni Sa role within the quote on lines 27-30. Or otherwise describing each of these roles.

Page 9, lines 31-33: Why has this role been reassigned? And why have the appointments above not been made? Suggest to delete this sentence, or otherwise to rewrite these paragraphs to make this clear.

Page 10, lines 24-25: Please specify what types of organisations these are: Soqosoqo

Vakamarama Cakaudrove, Api Food Consulting, Kava Korp and Maravu.

Page 13, line 25: Please add brackets to explain who the Tui Cakaudrove is to those not familiar with Fiji.

DISCUSSION

Page 14, lines 23 and 28: I think this should say Table 3.

Page 15, paragraph starting on line 37: my preference would be for a discussion of the study’s limitations to be in the methods section – this paragraph felt a little out of place here. A sentence or two in the methods section outlining the paper’s purpose and establishing the focus (exploring women and Indigenous knowledge) and the themes would likely also provide an appropriate segue to these study limitations.

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Reviewer #2: No

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Adaptive capacity in Pacific Islands: responding to coastal and climatic change in Nagigi village, Fiji

PCLM-D-24-00218R1

Dear Prof McMichael,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Adaptive capacity in Pacific Islands: responding to coastal and climatic change in Nagigi village, Fiji' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Climate.

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Laura Kuhl

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):