A Relational Approach to Landscape Stewardship: Towards a New Perspective for Multi-Actor Collaboration

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors

I have only one recommendation but it asks for some additional work on your paper.

You present gardening tools and your improved version still you should present more links and findings to connect it with your proposed social-relational practices.

I found it needed for a better understanding of your research and recommendations.

Kind regards

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for reviewing our manuscript, we appreciate you taking the time.

We have made revisions in section 5.2 to address your comment. These are mostly additions in terms of highlighting the findings in this section. Through the additions to the text, we have made more direct links between the social-relational practices and our findings from the case studies, and have also highlighted more clearly how it is that the gardening tools have helped us in identifying and making the case for these proposed social-relational practices.

We hope this makes it easier to understand our research and recommendations.

Thank you,

The authors.

Reviewer 2 Report

This study uses a double case study lens to investigate perspectives on multi-actor collaboration for landscape stewardship via the development of a relational approach, “both conceptually and empirically.” I have read this manuscript with interest and found it publishable with only very minor issues.

In Section 3.1 (lines 223-224), the authors delve into a proposition for “gardening tools.” There seems to be an assumption that readers would readily grasp the connotation/notion/concept of “gardening tools,” and this may not always be the case.  What are gardening tools? Can the authors provide a description (with citation) prior to using the term? This would help with comprehension of the three chosen tools, at this very critical section of the manuscript.

In the conclusion: The authors rightly asserted that in Section 1 (Lines 44-45) that “Taking a landscape-level approach to this basket of interconnected sustainability practices is seen as a means of integrating research, planning, policy and practice towards more sustainable and equitable outcomes for the variety of actors interested in the landscape”. However, the manuscript didn’t quite link the findings to any policy issues afterwards. In its current form, the conclusion is supported by the results. However, It would be helpful for the authors to (at least in the conclusion) provide in a sentence or two the policy implications of their findings prior to the listed recommendations. This will help provide a policy perspective to the work and also link back to the above-mentioned assertion earlier made in the introduction.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript. Your comments are helpful.

You raised two main points, which we have addressed as follows (our response below your comments as bullet points):

1. Introduce gardening tools better (Section 3.1 (lines 223-224): “Can the authors provide a description (with citation) prior to using the term? This would help with comprehension of the three chosen tools, at this very critical section of the manuscript.” (Reviewer 2)

• We have described the gardening tools, along with citations, earlier on in the methods section, saying what they are before introducing the term and then explaining the metaphor. We have also removed the phrase ‘gardening tools’ from the Section 3 (methods) heading so that it doesn’t put off the reader before he/she has encountered an explanation of the term in the text (see Section 3.1 from line 225).

2. Provide policy implications in the Conclusion: “It would be helpful for the authors to (at least in the conclusion) provide in a sentence or two the policy implications of their findings prior to the listed recommendations. This will help provide a policy perspective to the work and also link back to the above-mentioned assertion earlier made in the introduction.”… Link back to this assertion in the intro: “Taking a landscape-level approach to this basket of interconnected sustainability practices is seen as a means of integrating research, planning, policy and practice towards more sustainable and equitable outcomes for the variety of actors interested in the landscape” (Reviewer 2)

• This is a useful suggestion, thank you. We decided to add an additional section at the end of Section 5 (section 5.3) to outline some of the policy implications of the research and link it back to the broader aims of landscape stewardship as stated in the introduction.

We hope that these revisions sufficiently address your concerns about the manuscript.

Kind regards,

The authors.

Reviewer 3 Report

You can find my review in the attachment

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript.

We will respond point-by-point to the issues you raise below (our responses are presented as bullet points under your numbered points).

1. The introductory part of the article from the introduction to the methodology occupies too much of the article in relation to the rest.

• We have shortened Section 2 slightly (the academic editor also pointed this out). However, we do not feel we can shorten the introduction or the methodology any further, as the conceptual development of the relationality concept (introduction) and the methodology are themselves innovative contributions to the literature and we feel they should stay as is.

2. In the initial chapter (introduction) I propose to pay more attention to the presentation of various methods.

• We have outlined the methods in detail (Section 3). We have made some small refinements to the introduction to the methods (from line 225). We hope these are sufficient to address any concerns about presentation of methods.

3. There are no detailed results of the tests.

• We have provided detailed results of our study (which is a qualitative analysis): Section 4 gives an overview of the cases (4.1) and then details findings from our analysis (section 4.2, table 2). These results are presented as qualitative data in the form of narrative (text) and in a table. We did not conduct any ‘tests’ and so are not sure what you mean by this.

4. No details, e.g. regarding compared cropping methods

• This comment is vague and unclear: what details? And what cropping methods are you referring to? Whilst there are agricultural cropping activities happening in each of our cases studies, the details of these are not relevant to this article. The focus of this paper is collaboration between landscape stakeholders, not specific agricultural practices.

5. There are no tabular lists of analyzes carried out

• Table 2 is a detailed set of findings from our qualitative analysis. Maybe you were looking for quantitative data. Our study is qualitative in nature (we describe this in the Method section (3.2), line 256).

The work should include the results of mapping processes

• The mapping processes we describe are part of the detailed work within one of the case studies and the details thereof are not relevant to the focus of our article.

6. In line 468 - 471 authors write" In a second example, researchers have employed participatory mapping processes to collect and collate knowledge from the local catchment residents about their restoration priorities to guide planning and research by getting a better understanding of the local context". The work should include the results of mapping processes.

• As mentioned above, the details of the mapping processes are not relevant to the objectives of our study and the purpose of this paper.

7. The description of the results of each round is too general.

• We have described our results in careful detail – albeit in a narrative manner rather than in quantitative tables and graphs – in Section 4, and in Table 2.

Unfortunately, we have not been able to address most of your comments as they are not relevant to the aims and scope of our study. We feel that you may have misunderstood the purpose of the article, and also the methods employed. Your comments indicate that you were ‘looking’ for more biophysical (possibly agricultural?) and quantitative methods and findings. Our study is a social science study employing qualitative methods to analyse case studies of multi-actor collaboration, and most of your comments are therefore not aligned with the approach we have taken in this work.

Thank you, nonetheless for the time you have taken to engage with our research.

Kind regards,

The authors.  

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments on the text I included in the attached file.

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Please see attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf