PONE-D-23-09897Cocoa, livelihoods and deforestation in the Congo Basin: A spatial analysisPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Ngouhouo-Poufoun,

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“1. Funding for fieldwork provided by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), grant no: QZA-12/0882. Grants received by JNP. The funder did not play any role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Url: https://www.norad.no/en/front/

2. We acknowledge funding for the Staff (JNP) time from the UK Research and Innovation's Global Challenges Research Fund (UKRI GCRF) through the Trade, Development and the Environment Hub project (project number ES/S008160/1). Url: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FS008160%2F1“

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“The Congo Basin Institute (CBI) is a partnership in international development between universities, NGOs, and private business formed by The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). The UMR BETA is supported by a grant overseen by the French National Research Agency (ANR) as part of the ”Investissements d’Avenir” program (ANR-11-LABX-0002-01, Lab of Excellence ARBRE)”

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“1. Funding for fieldwork provided by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), grant no: QZA-12/0882. Grants received by JNP. The funder did not play any role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Url: https://www.norad.no/en/front/

2. We acknowledge funding for the Staff (JNP) time from the UK Research and Innovation's Global Challenges Research Fund (UKRI GCRF) through the Trade, Development and the Environment Hub project (project number ES/S008160/1). Url: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FS008160%2F1“

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Additional Editor Comments:

Dear Authors,

Although the reviewers recommend a possible publication of your paper, many issues, starting from the title to references, need to be addressed. There are many words in French in the text. The article should be proofreaded before any resubmission. The theory of sustainability should be discussed in the introduction Chapter.

The following paper may strengthen the background of your paper.

Ali, E. (2021). Farm Households’ Adoption of Climate-smart Practices in Subsistence Agriculture: Evidence from Northern Togo. Environmental Management 67, 949–962; https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-021-01436-3

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

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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: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This paper analyzes the full set of potential drivers of households’ deforestation, prioritizing or distinguishing among them to inform policy makers and facilitate appropriate political decision processes to curb deforestation from smallholders’ agriculture and forest activities in the medium- and long-term perspectives. Spatial autoregressive method was used for analysis of survey data from 1035 households in the Tridom landscape in the Congo basin. The result is that households emulate the deforestation decisions of their neighbors. Moreover, a marginal increase in income from cocoa-based livelihood’s portfolio, is associated with six to seven times higher deforestation than other livelihoods’ strategies with a significant spillover effect on neighboring households’ deforestation. Increased income from cocoa-based livelihoods in open access systems can negatively affect forests. This paper proposes as a policy recommendation that an approach to tackle the high risk of deforestation associated with cocoa could pass through farmers. This is done by promoting a complex cocoa agroforest system.

Comments:

It is a very valuable and relevant topic. It contributes significantly to the development of strategies for reducing deforestation associated with cocoa. The study presents original research results and has not been published elsewhere. Also, Authors have addressed the critical concerns raised by preview reviewers.

One point that I would like to raise is the use of a spatial autoregressive model (SAR) without prior justification. For example, why is a SAR model preferred to Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) or Spatial Error-correction Model (SEM)? Bayesian and AIC information criteria could be applied in order to confirm that SAR is the best method.

Reviewer #2: This paper considers how and the pathways through which the choice of livelihood strategies influence deforestation within the Tridom landscape in the Congo Basin using deferent models of spatial analysis. The structure is appropriate and the content of the paper is very rich and contributes to the theoretical and conceptual knowledge on direct and indirect, spillover effect of various factors influencing deforestation with special focus on livelihood strategies, household factors, and capital and factor constraints decision and contextual characteristic as they found income channel, an activity portfolio channel, and a market integration channel to be crucial to addressing the challenges of deforestation. This paper really contributes to the body of literature by filling the gaps identified. The literature review section is okay and adequate as the authors considered past studies from the macro, micro and spatial perspectives to channel the cause for this paper. The theoretical and conceptual framework presented is logical, well presented, and clear. The data, spatial econometric models, and selection procedure used were clear stated and specified. Although, the discussion needs to be supported with relevant related literature which the authors are yet to do with regards to the paper. The conclusion is sharp enough and clearly presented.

Nevertheless, there are few specific comments to further improve the quality of the paper.

1. I suggest that the authors perform a through editorial work on this paper. There are several disjointed sentences and the authors needs to recast some areas for clarity.

2. I suggest that the title should read; Cocoa, livelihoods and deforestation within the Tridom landscape in the Congo Basin: A spatial analysis. Given the center focus and the study area is Tridom landscape which is in the Congo Basin.

3. Cocoa is a tree crop and not livelihood strategy but its production/cultivation. See line 3(Abstract), line 277 and 280. I suggest it should read cocoa production.

4. The following sentences in the introduction section (line 2-3; 22-25,) should be referenced. As data quoted is not original to the authors as presented.

5. Line 33 the sentence “In the Congo Basin, Cameroon, …….” From the paper, Cameroon is among the countries in the Congo Basin. The authors will need to relook at the construction of the sentence again.

6. Line 44, “about 85,45% of households ……..” Is this 80-45% or 85.45%? try and reconfirm this.

7. Line 63, “75% cocoa and plantain yield ……” this should read 75% of cocoa ….

8. Line 95, “The spatial economic procedure in presented in section 4…. This should read “is presented in section 4, ……..

9. There are areas where it is important to mention/refer to the name of author cited (see line 265, 653)

10. Line 281, “influence deforestation.” remove the space before the full-stop.

11. Line 312, “Financial asset drive households’ deforestation Walker et al. [79, 80].” Remove the name of the authors and cite with number only. Also, there are different perspective to financial asset (e.g. household financial asset, institution or factor constraints). I suggest should try and position this well in the paper as it appears loosely placed as the authors discussed it close to environmental and policy factors.

12. Line 447-449, on the average, 4.75ha of land be cleared for subsistence farming or cash-crop such as cocoa? This seems the farmers here are not smallholder, cultivating this for subsistence is questionable. Try and relook at this again.

13. In the presentation and interpretation of results section, the author should introduce a uniform currency (i.e., stick with one currency) instead of interchanging CFA with $ even though there is conversion ratio (i.e., CFAF 1 = $0, 0021) in the footnote. For instance, see line 577, 588, 601, 602, 606

14. The authors failed to discuss their results within the context of other related literatures from past scholars even though they had a very rich literature review. This is one major flop of this paper. I advised the authors to look critically at this.

15. Line 720, the authors mentioned “cacao” instead of Cocoa. If the author wants to keep it as “cacao”, this should be italicized since it is not an English name. If the botanical name is preferred, references should be made to it at the first mention or as a foot note.

16. Line 722-723, “an income channel, an activity portfolio channel, and a market integration channel”. Why italicize this key word? I think it is not necessary.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Cocoa, livelihoods and deforestation within the Tridom landscape in the Congo Basin: A spatial analysis

PONE-D-23-09897R1

Dear Dr. Jonas Ngouhouo-Poufoun,

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Kind regards,

Essossinam Ali, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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