Critical Aspects of People’s Participation in Community-Based Forest Management from the Case of Van Panchayat in Indian Himalaya
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
In the introduction, “The authors start by asking a simple question about participatory forest management (PFM) – How do people who depend on forest resources, participate in and involve in managing the forest?”, but they should start by defining what they mean by “PFM”. Also, the conceptual institutional framework for forest governance has not significantly improved, despite the addition of a number of references (4, 6, 9, 28, 29, among others). Another significant problem is in the results section where there is still excessive raw data, repetitive information and poor emphasis making it difficult to understand the main findings. As well, the discussion, in the new version, had only superficial improvements (as the words in red showed). The authors did not take the opportunity to go deeper in the importance and originality of the main results. Despite the inclusion of new references (1, 4, 9), they didn’t use them. Also, authors did not take into account suggestions like Bulkan et al. 2022 (where chapter 23 is about a study of VP institutional governance for forest management in the Pithoragarh District –) one of the study cases reported. Particularly, the results discussion related to women (subsection 4.4) - one of the most important possible contributions of the manuscript- it was not improved, even if the reference 28 (Ballabh et al. 2002) and 29 (Sarin et al. 2003) were included. Reference 4 (Molnar et al. 2011) was inserted, but it was not cited in the text, although it could be useful for improving the introduction and discussion.
Additionally, I consider that the second version of the manuscript still presents an excessive and unnecessary number of tables and figures. Some present excessive raw data material and minimal efforts to improve the format and the data analysis, per example Table 6 (“summarizes the views of all women interviewed”). There is much redundant Information in the many tables and figures, per example: Table 1 include similar information used for Figure 8 (timelines for India, Indonesia, Philippines and Nepal). As one suggestion, figure 8 should be moved to 1.2.2 subsection, because it basically provides context. In some cases, titles of the tables and figure captions are still not explained. A number of figures could be eliminated, for example Figure 5 (in fact it is a table, and there is poor editing), Table 8 is still mentioned, but it does not appear in this version. In general, for figures and tables to say “prepared by the authors” is unnecessary, since unless otherwise indicated, it is evident they prepared them.
Author Response
Reviewer 1
We thank you very much for your criticisms and comments on the first revised manuscript. We apologize for missing some points and these critical comments have once again helped carefully and objectively address each point raised by the expert referee. We re-submit the thoroughly revised second version of the manuscript. Below, we have numbered the comments and questions, and we have provided their responses. In addition, the revised sections (considering the 2 referees comments) of the manuscript are highlighted in RED in the revised manuscript. Figures and Tables have bene also revised/re-arranged. Thank you again.
【First half of the comments】
Q.1, In the introduction, “The authors start by asking a simple question about participatory forest management (PFM) – How do people who depend on forest resources, participate in and involve in managing the forest?”, but they should start by defining what they mean by “PFM”.
A.1, Yes, we understand this point, and therefore, regarding the description of the question of what is Participatory Forest Management (PFM), we have included a new statement at the beginning (1. Background; first 3 lines) that it is used to describe a system in which the community work together to define use rights for forest resources and to define and develop responsibilities for forest management.
Q.2, Also, the conceptual institutional framework for forest governance has not significantly improved, despite the addition of a number of references (4, 6, 9, 28, 29, among others).
A.2, For the conceptual institutional framework of forest governance, we have modified the details of the figures and tables from the references you provided. In addition, we have moved Figure 8 to the background so that readers can focus from PFM to CBFM in Asia.
Q.3, Another significant problem is in the results section where there is still excessive raw data, repetitive information and poor emphasis making it difficult to understand the main findings.
A.3, We are sorry for the excessive raw data, repetition of information, and lack of emphasis in the results section, making it difficult to understand the key results. Thank you for showing them specifically in the second half of your comment. We have tried to follow your comment, and moved Table 4 to Supplementary Table D.
Q.4, As well, the discussion, in the new version, had only superficial improvements (as the words in red showed). The authors did not take the opportunity to go deeper in the importance and originality of the main results. Despite the inclusion of new references (1, 4, 9), they didn’t use them.
A.4, Sorry for not being able to be more convincing during the first revision. We have further discussed and deepened our conclusions about the importance and originality of the main results. I hope this will be satisfactory to you (Line 65-68, 531-533, 595-597, 638-640).
Q.5, Also, authors did not take into account suggestions like Bulkan et al. 2022 (where chapter 23 is about a study of VP institutional governance for forest management in the Pithoragarh District –) one of the study cases reported.
A.5, Thank you for the new introduction of the book "Routledge Handbook of Community Forestry" by Bulkan et al. 2022. We read it as a study that discusses in the case of van panchayat in India. We need to learn more about the case of community forestry, which is developing all over the world and discuss about CBFM in this paper (Line 681-683).
Q.6, Particularly, the results discussion related to women (subsection 4.4) - one of the most important possible contributions of the manuscript- it was not improved, even if the reference 28 (Ballabh et al. 2002) and 29 (Sarin et al. 2003) were included.
A.6, We appreciate your remarks about the important literature. The results discussion on women (4.4) and the conclusion have been discussed and revised (Line 572-574,678-681).
Q.7, Reference 4 (Molnar et al. 2011) was inserted, but it was not cited in the text, although it could be useful for improving the introduction and discussion.
A.7, Thanks for the references. Molnar et al. (2011) is cited in the introduction and discussion (Line 66-68; 595-597).
【Second half of the comments】
Q.8, Additionally, I consider that the second version of the manuscript still presents an excessive and unnecessary number of tables and figures. Some present excessive raw data material and minimal efforts to improve the format and the data analysis, per example Table 6 (“summarizes the views of all women interviewed”).
A.8, We moved Table 6 from the Supplementary Table at the direction of the second reviewer. Since data on women are important for this study, the raw data content has been carefully selected for inclusion.
Q.9, There is much redundant Information in the many tables and figures, per example: Table 1 include similar information used for Figure 8 (timelines for India, Indonesia, Philippines and Nepal). As one suggestion, figure 8 should be moved to 1.2.2 subsection, because it basically provides context.
A.9, We appreciate the suggestion. Figure 8 has been moved to subsection 1.2.2 as Figure 3. as “Organizing participatory community-based forest management (CBFM) in Asia”. We have considered whether Table 1 should be removed, but we wrote “Practical Content (APPROACH)” and “country case studies”, so we left it as such.
Q.10, In some cases, titles of the tables and figure captions are still not explained. A number of figures could be eliminated, for example Figure 5 (in fact it is a table, and there is poor editing), Table 8 is still mentioned, but it does not appear in this version.
A.10, Thank you for pointing these errors. Figure 5 is created in Excel and be changed into a table. The explanation for Table 8 has been corrected as the explanation for Table 7, and the explanation for Table 7 has been corrected as the explanation for Table 8. We sincerely apologize for the errors in the explanations.
Q.11, In general, for figures and tables to say “prepared by the authors” is unnecessary, since unless otherwise indicated, it is evident they prepared them.
A.11, Yes, we agree to your suggestion, and remove this wording.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
Thank you, authors, for revising the manuscript. The paper has been improved significantly. However, there are still some points that need to be considered before making it publishable.
Comments
· Presence of grammatical flaws and errors. Need proofreading by a native speaker or professional English editor.
· Table 3: What does Male 6.8,7,6,6.4,6,25 in VP D, G, K, M, respectively mean? Is that the number of males or ratio or what?
· Methods: Line 258-263: Please briefly describe the survey. What was the response type (Close-ended or Open-ended)? Did the authors have IRB approval? Did authors have prior consent to take an interview with respondents?
· Line 268: why and how did the authors take 28 respondents from 24 households? Please explain briefly. It is not clear who the respondents were either head of the household or any member of household. Any criteria in selecting the respondents in the household. What did the authors do if s/he did not meet the household head?
· Discussion: Line: 669-672: The study found the pitfalls of electing FMC. I suggest adding some recommendations to increase the women’s active participation in MC in the conclusion section based on the findings.
· Line 675: I think we cannot say, “Women were found to be the main users of the forest,…”. Women do not use forest products themselves. Forests are used by families. I suggest authors choose the better words while proposing the statement.
Author Response
Reviewer 2
Thank you very much once again for your critical reading and comments on the first revised manuscript. We apologize for missing some points and these critical comments have once again helped carefully and objectively address each point raised by the expert referee. We re-submit the thoroughly revised second version of the manuscript. Below, we have numbered the comments and questions, and we have provided their responses. In addition, the revised sections (considering the 2 referees’ comments) of the manuscript are highlighted in RED in the revised manuscript. Figures and Tables have bene also revised/re-arranged. Thank you again.
Q.1, Presence of grammatical flaws and errors. Need proofreading by a native speaker or professional English editor.
A.1, Sincere apologies for the remaining errors, and giving us another chance to revise; and, the manuscript has also been re-read by an English speaker.
Q.2, Table 3: What does Male 6.8,7,6,6.4,6,25 in VP D, G, K, M, respectively mean? Is that the number of males or ratio or what?
A.2, Sorry for the confusion from this usage. The items you pointed out have been corrected as “Male (Population)” and “Average Family Number” were incorrect. Further details of the items have been added in the revision.
Q.3, Methods: Line 258-263: Please briefly describe the survey.
Q.3-1, What was the response type (Close-ended or Open-ended)?
Q.3-2, Did the authors have IRB approval?
Q.3-2, Did authors have prior consent to take an interview with respondents?
A3. Thank you, and yes the survey has been briefly described. (Line 279-284).
A.3-1, These responses, including the examples, are structured interview surveys and are ‘close-ended’ questions. After the interview, some households offered tea (chai) and other drinks and the researcher was able to talk further as a free interview, thus this falls under the category of ‘open-ended’ questions.
A.3-2, Regarding IRB (Institutional Review Board), we were guided by University of Tsukuba on-campus Ethics Review Committee at the survey in D village since 2012.
A.3-2, Under the guidance of the university's Ethics Review Committee, all households were interviewed after obtaining permission to conduct the survey. However, we did not take a formal ethics approval number for the research.
Q.4, Line 268: why and how did the authors take 28 respondents from 24 households? Please explain briefly. It is not clear who the respondents were either head of the household or any member of household. Any criteria in selecting the respondents in the household. What did the authors do if s/he did not meet the household head?
A.4, All 28 respondents were adult females and were administered by snowball sampling. The results were divided by households, and there were 24 households. Only one household had a female household head, making it difficult to select a female head of household. The 28 respondents from 24 households were women whose answers were not denied for any reason.
Q.5, Discussion: Line: 669-672: The study found the pitfalls of electing FMC. I suggest adding some recommendations to increase the women’s active participation in MC in the conclusion section based on the findings.
A.5, Authors sincerely appreciate this excellent suggestion. In the conclusion section, we have added the recommendations for increasing women's active participation in MC based on the survey results (Line 678-683).
Q.6, Line 675: I think we cannot say, “Women were found to be the main users of the forest,…”. Women do not use forest products themselves. Forests are used by families. I suggest authors choose the better words while proposing the statement.
A.6, Thank you for this critical comment; yes, we apologize for poor choice of word here in this sentence. Women also use forest products themselves, and indeed, they use the forests for their families. We have revised and described it carefully and have made the corrections (Line 661-662).
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
The article, and this is now publishable.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you so much.
Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
Thank you, authors, for revising the manuscript. Still, there are a few points that must be improved.
1. My previous comments were not adequately addressed. 1) I reiterate that please briefly describe the survey. 2) If IRB approval was done, what is the registration number, it is important to add in the parentheses? 3) Did authors have prior consent with respondents to take an interview?
2. Again, it is not clear who the respondents were either head of the household or any member of the household. Any criteria in selecting the respondents in the household?
3. Please explain briefly. What did the authors do if s/he did not meet the household head?
4. Line 252-255: It is too general. What items in the forest policies should increase? Please write, 3-5 actions or activities that need to be carried out to increase the women’s participation in MC.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper include interesting results to let us to understand, “how the local people are involved in the VP and what precisely are the levels and/or conditions of participation”. Results from almost a decade of study, the review of gray literature and many local documents, interviews to local people (including some leaders, like Mr. R) and participatory observations had result in abundant information. The women result were relevant, with deep messages like “The forest is like a father to me, giving me blessings when I am in trouble”, although they only were obtained in one from four studied villages. Unfortunately, the current version present many problems to be publish. In general, I found huge details that authors must to work, to have an acceptable version. They include the general structure of the manuscript:
1) “Background” should be divided in an “Introduction” and in a “Context section”. This section need to improve the theoretical-conceptual background and in the “context section” referent information and antecedents –useful for support some results and discussion- could be included, per example: the micro-plan, and governmental/non-governmental organizations, or village K is integrated by people from an homogeneous caste, among other empties mentioned until the “discussion”.
2) Methods, need to provide arguments to understand how representative were the four studied villages, in the context from the total 12,000 (or 6,000; 4,050,000 ha) VP in the state of Uttarakhand. Also a subsection about the data analysis is needed.
3) Results need a better and clear organization (particularly because some parts looks like as a technical report than a paper, per example when some results were presented, like Table 3, and it’s necessary to relocate some information to method section. Also information from Table 4 (question # 4) was unnecessarily repeated in Table 5.
4) Discussion includes many results and data will correspond to “context” section. Also, it is important their results could have a better discussion in the wide context of literature on the CBFM, with cases where the people’s participation/involvement had been widely explored, and some general patterns had been exhibited, particularly in Latin America and, principally, for Mexico.
5) Authors must to prepare a “Conclusion” section, instead to present it as a subsection from the discussion.
6) References. Those in Indi and Japanese are inaccessible through google and google scholar. Maybe a website link could be more useful. This section need a complete review, because there is a mix of formats among the same kind of references (Books, chapters, technical reports and even papers), particularly gray literature –inaccessible-was abundant. Some Key cited papers and some Journals –like Forestry Economy and Journal of Rural Planning, are not finding by google and google scholar.
Also, I may notice there is an excessive use of acronyms, particularly in tables, which make difficult a fluent reading of the manuscript.
Some tables and figures are unnecessary. Table titles and figure labels need to be more complete and provide basic details.
Table 3 was integrated with raw data, so it should be remade or move as supplementary material.
Supplementary Table A
Title for the table is necessary.
Explanatory about Caste categories is necessary for in international readers, who are not familiar with term used.
This table presents basic data from interviewed people (e.g. education that should be presented as tables or figures in results, because they may help for a better discussion.
Questions 2.2-2.6 and 2.6-3.7, didn’t include “0”, but data reported it.
There are spelling errors in column 3.8
In 3.5. . Forest ... it is called as Appendix A, which is confused.
Some suggested literature:
Bray, 2020. Mexico's Community Forest Enterprises: Success on the Commons and the Seeds of a Good Anthropocene.
FAO, 2016. Forty years of community-based forestry
Fischer, 2018. Forest landscapes as social–ecological systems and implications for management.
Molnar et al. 2015. Community-Based Forest Management. The Extent and Potential Scope of Community and Smallholder Forest Management and Enterprises.
Wentzel, 2021. Social Forestry in Latin America
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are extremely grateful for your critical comments, which has greatly helped use improve the manuscript.
We look forward to the comments on our revised manuscript, and if there are further suggestions, we are ready to incorporate them too.
Best regards,
Authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you editor and authors for providing an opportunity to read this manuscript. The paper is too long and the information is too detailed as well. However, useful and important information is still lacking. The papers must be significantly improved especially in the methods and result section. Also, it must be well-written by reorganizing the structure and correcting the grammatical errors
Comments:
Abstract: Need to revise by adding a justification of the study and by providing a sentence about the sampling intensity. For instance, a totheal number of households and sampled households.
Figure 4: The flow chart describing CBFM is not clear.
Methods:
I suggest the order of the methods should be reorganized. I saw “Village D” unpredictably in line 210 without its background. Also, I did not know what is village D until I read the next subsection. In addition, what is the significance of writing “first director”, and “new director” in lines 211-213? As the authors said, the microplan was analyzed, how it was analyzed, and what information was analyzed from the microplan?
2.2 Preliminary investigation and selection: Were VP and village the same? Among 12,000 VPs in Uttarakhand, 24 VPs were selected using the snowball sampling method? It is very unclear to readers. The statements should be orderly and reorganized.
Line 229-231: Is it necessary to quote the authors’ work in the manuscript?
What was the purpose of repeatedly visit to village D?
2.4. Participatory observation: The authors reiterate the “first author”, and “main authors”. Are they provide any significance to the papers?
Result
I do not know whether the information provided in Table 3 is household level or respondent’s level. For instance, firewood collecting time (hours/per week), if it is household level then, the value could be significantly higher. Because the authors explained that the women go to the forest three to four times a week in lines 363-365.
3.2. Local People’s participation in Forest Management: Lines 290-295 can go to the data collection section.
Table 4: Most of the information in Table 4 is the same of Table 3.
Figure 6: The arrow showing the level of participation from “low” to “high’ could be the opposite.
Again, Table 5 is just a repetition of Table 4.
Discussion: Most of the discussion is just a repetition of the result. Figure 8 and Figure 9 are also repeated.
Conclusion: This section is to summarize the manuscript. However, there is several new information seen in the section. For instance, lines 650-651. I do not understand line 658, ..” participation in CBFM activities was easy….”
Specific comments:
Line 221: From among them,
Table 3: Recheck the spelling of “moble” “computer”, “electricity”, “mad”.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are extremely grateful for the Reviewers critical comments, which has greatly helped use improve the manuscript. We look forward to the comments on our revised manuscript, and if there are further suggestions, we are ready to incorporate them too.
Best regards,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
