Policy Processes in the Institutionalisation of Private Forestry in the Republic of North Macedonia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments attached.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

I’m very thankful for the valuable and useful comments. I have made many substantive changes that correspond on all your suggestions and comments. I consider all your suggestion and please in addition find my responses in red letter under each comment.

1) First, the English is quite bad, to the point of at least making the manuscript very difficult to even read, and even probably downgrading its merits because the concepts discussed lose their clarity. The English should eliminate the continual use of passive voice sentences, and make sure all sentences have proper subject and verb constructions. This manuscript has the most “super-passive” voice and tough to read English I remember seeing. Perhaps the author could use Grammarly or something to improve that, or work with an editor to make it better.

VS: Thank you for this comment; it seems unprofessional for my side for so many grammar errors. I have tried to eliminate them and the paper was improved by me and one colleague as well. If the paper is accepted by the editors there is a possibility the paper to be given for professional English check and improvement.

2) The list of institutional theories and approaches was good, and a useful review to set up the paper as to how private forestry in Macedonia could evolve. However, eventually it was not clear which of these theories was identified as the one/s that emerged from the research, and not drawn together in the results and discussion, Again, this might be an English problem, but could be more of logic issue. There does need to be a better link between the theory, data collection, results, and outcomes.

VS:  I consider this comment as one of the most important and this is the issue that I was struggling. The improvements regarding this issue were incorporated in section Results (more precisely the policy process section 4.3), in the Discussion part, and in Conclusion part 5. The content structure remain the same while the text within the paper was restructured and improved

3) The sample and interviews were representative of the different sectors, and the interview instrument seemed appropriate. The shortcoming here is that there were only 8 interviews as I understand the paper, usually about an hour or less in duration. So, I have no problem with the process or data collection, which also included secondary documents and literature. All that seems appropriate for such research.

4) However, there were really very few interviews (~8), and not much total time of those. Writing a major paper based on such a small sample, totaling only about one day of interviews in total, just does not seem adequate for a major refereed research article. That level of quantity does not seem sufficient to provide any depth or nuances in the research. Even just reading the interview questions and getting any response from each persons would only lead to curt answers, even for the interviews made.

VS:  Replay for 3&4: I was tried to have equal actor representation in the interviewers' structure. One of the criteria for selection was to have experience in the policy process or certain knowledge in forest policy. In the method part, I have explained that 3 methods were applied the a) content analysis, b) Interviews, and c) Surveys. The interviews data has shown for certain issues, two opposite answers. Therefore these opposite answers were presented as statements in the survey in which the participants were required to evaluate them. Also, an additional analysis of the law was done in order to understand the situation.

There are not so many people (experts) that are dealing with forest policy issues. I have tried to include as much as possible.

5) It also seems that there may be some pre-conceptions of the author that the three key laws determined the outcomes, and that there was not enough institutionalization because the vested state interests blocked it and led to a new law in 2014. This seems to be a result if I understand the writing correctly, but it would be hard to “prove” that or any other outcome was the a case in the level of 8 interviews alone. So I think the author’s views predetermine the outcome. This is not a definite issue to me, but appears to be the case.

VS:  Thank you for this comment and this can be related to remark 2. By using the HI I was trying to see does any change in the past has influenced on the current policy. As an ex-socialist country in the forest policy was prevailing the protection of the state interest and state dominance. The three laws were used to see how they regulate private forestry (ownership structure, forest management of private forests …) although the last one from 2009 was the focus of this paper. This analysis shows that there are no big differences in the regulation regarding the institutionalization of private forestry although the system was changed in 1991. Maybe this is one of the reasons why the reviewer perceived that I have already a personal view on this issue.

6) There are many English and presentation and word choice suggestions I could make, but that is too much for me. Just as one of many examples, lines 450 to 452 state incomprehensively that:

“During the interviews, several of the respondents mentioned the possibility ‘…to choose a person that gave you beside management activities other advisory services, something that we do not have previously, and most of us were attracted and delighted (respondent 1)’”.

This is stated as a direct quote, but this and some other quotes would be better paraphrased because a literal translation did not capture the intent well.

VS:  Very good comment. To replay this comment takes me the most time. The purpose of utilization of direct quote was applied in order to avoid the suspicion that my personal views are used. With the direct quote, as an author, I wanted to show that these are personal words and the voice of the interviewers, not mine. I understand and accept this comment and paraphrased the direct quotation, considering capturing the respondent's point and meaning.

7) One thought—the author uses the percentage responses often, such as 87% (7/8 I think). The percentage sounds fine, but 7 out 8 is not meaningful. This is important for Table 2.

VS:  Thank you for this comment, I consider this remark and change those parts.  

8) In the discussions, the linkage between statements and the research are not very strong, and generic and not clear conclusions occur that could be made regardless of the research. Just one more example, lines 562-567:

“It is most likely that the private forestry issues will be reframed in a way to fit in the current prevailing discourses and policy designs following the current forest sector trajectories. Integrating private forestry problems and concerns into the broader forest policy domains requires a deep understanding of their rational principles, tradition, and strong political will, which is possible if there, is existing effective national forest policy coordination.”

N.b.: this is not meaningful. And the last sentence is repeated almost verbatim as the last lines of 610-613

VS:  Thank you for this comment, I have tried to substantially connect the research, statements, discussion, and conclusion.   

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper aims to understand the enabling or constraining role of the policy on the institutionalisation of private forestry. The topic is interesting. Here are my comments to improve the paper:

1- in the abstract, make it clearer what you mean by institutionalisation. What knowledge gaps did you identify? What methodology did you utilise? Also, add some more discussions of your findings/conclusions.

2- In the introduction, make clearer what knowledge gaps you identified and how your research addresses them. Also, make the research objectives/questions clearer. Answer the “so what?” question. Why investigating such matter is important? End the introduction with an outline of the paper; what comes next?

3- The novelty/originality should be clearly justified that the manuscript contains sufficient contributions to the new body of knowledge from the international perspective.  What new things (new theories, new methods, or new policies) can the paper contribute to the existing international literature? This point must be reasonably justified by a Literature Review, clearly introduced in Introduction Section, and completely discussed in Discussion Section.

4- you need a new section on literature review. You need to acknowledge the existing literature on the issue and clearly identify the knowledge gap.

5- the paper draws on a good range of literature. Include these references to acknowledge the issues surrounding the strategies behind policy making:

https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2020.1817867

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2018.02.009

6- you need to further justify your case study. Why did you choose this case?

7- provide more information on the interviews. How long did they take on average? What type of questions did you ask - you don’t need to list them all, but provide some details for the reader to understand your interview design? How did you find and approach your interviewees? What sampling method and strategy did you use? Perhaps present some of this information in a table.

8- What are the limitations of your methodology/study?

9- you need to refer back to the literature and previous studies in your result, discussion and conclusion sections.

10- it is not clear why the section ‘Institutionalism’ is presented after the methodology. Should it be presented before methodology and as part of the literature review? After the methodology you need to present your empirical findings.

11- your conclusion section is rather short and does not do justice to your work. Make it your key contributions, arguments, and findings clearer.

12- how generalisable your findings are to contexts of private forestry. Provide some discussions around the generalisability of your findings in the discussion section.

Author Response

This paper aims to understand the enabling or constraining role of the policy on the institutionalisation of private forestry. The topic is interesting. Here are my comments to improve the paper:

• in the abstract, make it clearer what you mean by institutionalization. What knowledge gaps did you identify? What methodology did you utilise? Also, add some more discussions of your findings/conclusions.

VS: Thank you for the comment. Certain changes were done considering the space and words limitation of the journal.

2- In the introduction, make clearer what knowledge gaps you identified and how your research addresses them. Also, make the research objectives/questions clearer. Answer the “so what?” question. Why investigating such matter is important? End the introduction with an outline of the paper; what comes next?

VS: The Introduction part was significantly revised based on yours and other reviewers as well.

3- The novelty/originality should be clearly justified that the manuscript contains sufficient contributions to the new body of knowledge from the international perspective. What new things (new theories, new methods, or new policies) can the paper contribute to the existing international literature? This point must be reasonably justified by a Literature Review, clearly introduced in Introduction Section, and completely discussed in Discussion Section.

VS: Considered this comment very seriously. Reconstructed the results part to follow the chronological order of the events that happened related to the PFOs and interrelated to the new EU discourse in Macedonian forest sector.

4- you need a new section on literature review. You need to acknowledge the existing literature on the issue and clearly identify the knowledge gap.

VS: Thank you , I have made a few changes in section 3 Institutionalism which is considered as the theoretical framework of this paper. 

5- the paper draws on a good range of literature. Include these references to acknowledge the issues surrounding the strategies behind policy making:

https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2020.1817867

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2018.02.009

VS: Very useful articles, they help me to improve the theoretical part by using different institutional approaches and looking on same problem institionalisation of private forestry from different institutionalism lenses.

6- you need to further justify your case study. Why did you choose this case?

VS: Thank you for the excellent comment. This question is the core point of my paper. There is a lack of research about the PFO issues, for many years the PFO was neglected by the state authorities. The issues of PFO were very little debated in public. As a researcher, I want to have an independent observation on this issue. Due to the lack of relevant researches on this topic as you notice I have struggled with this. Some of the improvements are in this direction.

7- provide more information on the interviews. How long did they take on average? What type of questions did you ask - you don’t need to list them all, but provide some details for the reader to understand your interview design? How did you find and approach your interviewees? What sampling method and strategy did you use? Perhaps present some of this information in a table.

VS: Thank you for the comment. All relevant information about the interviews, questions, duration, and the survey questions are integrated in the Annex part.

8- What are the limitations of your methodology/study?

VS: The domination of the stakeholders’ coming from the state/public sector. The PFOs and the representatives from the private sector do not feel comfortable expressing their problems and perceptions in front of the state forest authorities

9- you need to refer back to the literature and previous studies in your result, discussion and conclusion sections.

10- it is not clear why the section ‘Institutionalism’ is presented after the methodology. Should it be presented before methodology and as part of the literature review? After the methodology you need to present your empirical findings.

VS 9 &10: Agree with these remarks /comments. As early-stage researcher maybe I’m still dependent on the classical (student) way of paper writing.  I have tried to improve the institutionalism part by explaining the different types of new institutionalism and later on I tried to relate the results and findings on new institutionalism approaches.

11- your conclusion section is rather short and does not do justice to your work. Make it your key contributions, arguments, and findings clearer.

12- how generalisable your findings are to contexts of private forestry. Provide some discussions around the generalisability of your findings in the discussion section.

VS 11 & 12: I have improved the conclusion part with the generalization of the findings. The discussion part was enlarged with the findings. The influence of EU policy on national level policy was also considered and related to the institutionalization of private forestry in North Macedonia.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear author,

thank you for the interesting manuscript on the changes of PFO issues in North Macedonia. Although the manuscript is interesting it needs further improvements with respect to the structure and language to be published. Detailed comments are attached. I hope they will be helpful in improving the manuscript. 

Kindes regards

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

I’m very thankful for the valuable and useful comments. I have considered all your suggestion and comments. Please in addition find my responses in a red lettesr under each comment.

Article review

Article title: Policy processes in the institutionalization of private forestry in the Republic of North Macedonia

General comment: The article presents interesting development of the policy changes in North Macedonia, and a failure to successfully address private forest owners (PFOs) and forest management.

Regardless of that, the manuscript needs to be further improved to be accepted for publishing. I have two general recommendations:

1. To improve the English language extensive revising and editing: In many instances, sentences are interrupted in the middle, which makes them difficult to understand. The same case is with extensively long sentences, which can be quite unclear. Also, tenses in the sentences and paragraphs are not matching. Finally, the article has many similar abbreviations (i.e., PFL, FL, NAPFO, etc.), so I would encourage reducing the number to only necessary and most repeating ones.

VS: Thank you for the comment. The English language was improved by me and one colleague. Professional improvement of the English language is possible depending on the editors’ outcome. In many cases, the sentences were shortened. The abbreviations were reduced.  More precisely the abbreviation PFL was changed in the text.

2. The ‘red line” of the article needs to be improved, especially regarding the results and discussion section.
3. Substantially improvement of the paper in order to connect the paper structure

Detailed comments by section

Abstract: Abstract is well written. The abbreviation PFL should be replaced with the full term.

Introduction: A separate subsection within the introduction can be established distinguishing the state of the private forest sector in North Macedonia from the general relevance of PFOs. (l. 55 – to the end of the section).

VS: improvement in the introduction part was done based on this suggestion.

One research question could be modified to better address the scope of the study, focusing on the licensed bodies, PFOs, and private forest land reforms.

Data Collection – Methods: This section should be renamed Materials and methods and restructured. A part of the first paragraph (l.100 – 117) would better suit (with some rewriting) the introduction section as they present the justification of the importance of PFOs drawing on the previous literature. The materials and methods section could then start by introducing the case study steps. Followed by the identification of policy documents (l. 133- 135), and data collection methods (l. 151 – 176), then selection of interviewees (l. 141 – 151). It would be useful to present the table with analyzed policy documents in chronological order. Also, it would be useful to know how exactly policies were analyzed (coding, tabulation, etc.).

VS: Done, the section renamed and additional explanation of the methods applied given.

Initialization: This section should come before the Materials and Methods section.

Results: This section should be restructured as it presents a mix of results and discussion.

Maybe it would be useful to present first the results of content analysis, simply outlining changes chronologically, and the present the results of stakeholders interviews relating them to the results from the document analysis.

4.1 Initialization of private forestry: This section was a bit hard to follow, as the processes were not presented in chronological order. I would suggest ordering the information chronologically.

VS: The section was reformulated and improved in order to fits in the results part. Thank you for the comment for improvement of the consistency or looking at the chronological order.

4.2. Law on forest (2009) and forest management practices on private forest land in North Macedonia: I had difficulty understanding this section, as it does not exactly present the results from the content analysis of the Law (2009) as I expected from the title. One part of this section seems to discuss the result basing them on the FAO FRA report. Then, several changes in the period 1997 – 2009 are presented. I think this (together with Table 1) might better suit subsection 4.1. Maybe it could also help just giving a more appropriate title to this subsection.

VS: The section was improved.

4.3. Policy processes: This section also appears as a mix of discussion and results. The first part of the section could be moved to the discussion, as it discusses the changes in the light of the path dependency. I would recommend presenting the results of stakeholders’ interviews (450- 499).

VS: Thank you for this suggestion. The first paragraph was removed and placed into the discussion part and the other parts of this section were significantly improved.

5. Discussion: Discussion could more focus a bit more on different aspects of institutionalism. Path dependency and other concepts highlighted in the section Institutionalism should be better discussed. Also, having a mind a very small sample (7 interviewees) limitations of the study have to be better discussed

VS: The discussion part was improved based on the reviewer's suggestions. The discussion is oriented on the different aspects of institutionalism mixed with some results data.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript has improved considerably.  I made a few modest suggestions mostly about presentation, not content, in my attached review. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Ok, so this manuscript seems to be revised and improved considerably, or I am in a better mood perhaps. Anyway, I think with some more modest improvements, this can be re-considered. My list of suggestions follows.

1. The English and presentation is much improved. The author states it could go through one more thorough English review if accepted. He certainly should do so.

VS: Agree, after integration of all comments from all reviewers the paper will go under professional English review. 

2.  Lines 5 and 6. The affiliation here is almost Greek to me. Maybe put the word “Affiliation:” before it all starts. It took me a while to figure who Hans Em was. (The name of the school, I think).

VS: Added and improved the affiliation of my home institution.

3. Line 29-30. Change to: “It shifted to…”

VS: Changed according to reviewer request.

 4. Line 41. It seems that always the use should be written as the “Law on Denationalization” with a capital N. Here and in the rest of the manuscript. Search and Change.

VS: Implemented in all manuscript.

5. Line 44. Change max of 15%… to maximum share of 15%… State why, and who the experts are with a citation, e.g., [6].

VS: Changed and insert appropriate citations.

6. About line 55. Give a figure of North Macedonia, maybe with border countries, and its capital. I had to look on Google maps, which is not hard, but it should be in the paper. Tell us the population of country, and maybe the number of private owners if it is not somewhere else. (It may be).

 VS: Integrated above line 66, before the total country and forest area and the number of private forest owners.

7. Line 54. Strike …legitimate…

 VS: Applied.

8. Line 66. Tell us what the total country area and forest area is in ha.

VS: Integrated into the manuscript.

9. Line 70. Capitalize Forest in law on Forests, here and in rest of paper.

VS: Agreed and changed into the manuscript.

 10. line 73, Delete the (parens) on ha.

VS: Deleted.

11.  line 73. Change “mass” to “inventory” here and elsewhere

VS: Changed.

 12.  Line 89. Drop ex before Yugoslavia. We know it is ex.

VS: ex before Yugoslavia deleted in the manuscript.

13. Line 94. Delete “all”

VS: Deleted.

14. Line 101. Change effectuating to affecting

VS: Agree and changed.

15. Line 126 to 130. This is somewhat circular reasoning and awkward at least. Maybe just say in simple English that “The study will study private forest institutionalization and the effects of private forest management practices.”

VS: Agreed and changed.

16. Line 156. Strike “have” after people.

VS: Agreed.

 17. line 165 and many other places. Use more paragraph breaks. Page long paragraphs are too had to wade through. Start a new par at “To obtain..”

VS: Applied.

18. line 176. Ditto. Start a new par. At “The semi-structured…”

VS: Applied.

19. line 230. Ditto. New par at “The policies…”

VS: Applied.

20. line 242. Ditto. New par at “From a…”

VS: Applied.

21. Lines 250-400. No noticeable comments. Good! Having English proofing would be nice if possible / affordable.

VS:  Glad and happy about your (this) comment.

22. line 410. Change begging to beginning.

VS:  Changed.

 23. line 417 change “interfere” to “affect”. Add a sentence or more next to say if these factors are anticipated to have a positive or adverse effect on private forestry. And why.

VS: Applied and add additional paragraph (2 sentences) on the addressed comment.

24. line 423. Change aforementioned to preceding.

VS: Done.

25. line 424. Strike/delete “…was placed. The Forest Strategy…” not needed.

VS: Done.

26. line 451. Change to read ” …respondents agreed…” (add the s; strike has)

VS: Done.

27. Line 462. Change to “…interview data…” (no s)

VS: The S was deleted.

28. line 495. Change to 1990s.

VS: Changed.

29. line 500-501. Very awkward. Maybe simplify to say maybe that “The government still (or PENs) still neglects private owners.”

VS: Improved and Applied.

30. line 508. New par. at “While the…”

VS: Done.

31. line 514. Change to read ”..influencing them to stay…”

VS: Done.

32. line 518 – 523, Nice point. (Actually you have many; my job as a reviewer is to make improvements, not just say great throughout. Sorry.)

VS: Thanks.

33. line 528. New par at “New governance…”

VS:  Done.

34. line 544. Ditto at “The Republic…”

VS:  Done.

35. Ditto at “implementation of”

VS:  Done.

36. Line 652. Change to start with “North Macedonia is committed to joining..”

VS: Changed.

37. Ok this seems much improved. I understood the writing and the ideas far better, and it seemed to flow much better. Do proof it well for English, and use simpler words and sentences when you can. We will be much more impressed with clarity and brevity than enormous words and dense concepts.

VS:  Thanks for the detailed review, and for very valuable comments. Your comments have helped me to use a different (but right) approach during the paper writing.

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for addressing the comments. The paper reads much better now, however, a few comments have remained unaddressed:

1- In the abstract, make sure to include the major aspects of the entire paper in a prescribed sequence that includes: 1) the overall purpose of the study and the research problem(s) you investigated; 2) the basic design of the study; 3) major findings or trends found as a result of your analysis; and, 4) a brief summary of your interpretations and conclusions. At the moment, some of these aspects are missing.

2- It doesn't make sense for the section ‘Institutionalism’ to be presented after the methodology. It should be presented before methodology and as part of the literature review. After the methodology you need to present only your empirical findings.

3- the paper concerns institutionalization. Including some recent references related to new institutional economics will be helpful:

https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2021.12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.11.011

https://doi.org/10.1505/146554820829403513

4- You also didn't include the references on the strategies behind policymaking as my comment 5 outlined in the previous round of reviews.

5- You only interviewed 8 people. Provide more details on why this was enough number of interviewees and how you compensated for the limited information collected?

Author Response

Thank you for addressing the comments. The paper reads much better now, however, a few comments have remained unaddressed:

1- In the abstract, make sure to include the major aspects of the entire paper in a prescribed sequence that includes: 1) the overall purpose of the study and the research problem(s) you investigated; 2) the basic design of the study; 3) major findings or trends found as a result of your analysis; and, 4) a brief summary of your interpretations and conclusions. At the moment, some of these aspects are missing.

VS: I have tried to improve and made some changes in the abstract part.

2- It doesn't make sense for the section ‘Institutionalism’ to be presented after the methodology. It should be presented before methodology and as part of the literature review. After the methodology you need to present only your empirical findings.

VS: Thank you for this suggestion, I have moved the institutionalism part before the methodology part.

3- the paper concerns institutionalization. Including some recent references related to new institutional economics will be helpful:

https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2021.12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.11.011

https://doi.org/10.1505/146554820829403513

VS: Thank you for providing very good references, they were useful for me not only related to new institutionalism but also for the methodology part.

4- You also didn't include the references on the strategies behind policymaking as my comment 5 outlined in the previous round of reviews.

VS: Thank you for this comment and sorry that you remind me again. The suggested references in the previous review were analyzed and were very useful.  Sorry for not implementing then due to not appropriately understanding the comment then. Now is clearer.  

5- You only interviewed 8 people. Provide more details on why this was enough number of interviewees and how you compensated for the limited information collected?

VS: In one of the suggested papers there was a useful part “recruiting relevant participants” which helps me a lot in expressing my idea. The concept presented there was more or less the same as my initial concept when I started to collect the data for this paper.

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear author,

I carefully read your article. I find it improved, but it still needs major revision. Please find my comments related to the changes you made, based on your responses. 

I wish you happy holidays.

Kindest regards

___________________________________

2nd article review

Article title: Policy processes in the institutionalization of private forestry in the Republic of North Macedonia

General comment: The article is significantly improved, especially with respect to the results, yet it still needs major corrections. 

1. The English language is improved and it is easier to follow now. Yet, it would still require professional revising and editing, especially regarding the tenses in the sentences and paragraphs that are not matching.
2. The ‘red line” of the article is improved, especially regarding the results and discussion section. Nevertheless, the result section is still a bit hard to follow with respect to the chronological order. More details on that in the detailed comments on Results

Detailed comments by section

Introduction: The state of the private forest sector in North Macedonia is still not sufficiently distinguished from the general relevance of PFOs. (l. 55 – to the end of the section), as a separate subsection. Please add subsection 1.1. The state of the private forest sector in North Macedonia  within the introduction can be established distinguishing 

Data Collection – Methods: Although the section was renamed and some changes were made, the section is still not clear. As indicated in the first review, a part of the first paragraph (l.100 – 117) would better suit (with some rewriting) the introduction section as they present the justification of the importance of PFOs drawing on the previous literature. The materials and methods section could then start by introducing the case study steps, clearly distinguishing between data collection methods (desktop research and identification of policy documents,  semi-structured interviews and selection of respondents, and survey) and data analysis methods. It would be still useful to present the table with analyzed policy documents and year of adoption. Also, it would be useful to know how exactly policies were analyzed (coding, tabulation, etc.). The description regarding ethical aspects of data collection should be shortened, as there are repetitive statements.

Institutionalization: I still have a feeling that this would fit better before Materials and methods.

Results: This section was significantly improved, especially in points 4.1 and 4.2, but section 4.3 still needs some improvements, as it is still mixing the results with discussion (e.g. l.429-436 belong to discussion), as indicated in the previous review.

Discussion: Discussion was improved. The weaknesses of the study (e.g. low number of respondents) were not reported anywhere, and this needs to be added either in this section or under the section on Materials and methods.

Author Response

Article title: Policy processes in the institutionalization of private forestry in the Republic of North Macedonia

General comment: The article is significantly improved, especially with respect to the results, yet it still needs major corrections. 

1. The English language is improved and it is easier to follow now. Yet, it would still require professional revising and editing, especially regarding the tenses in the sentences and paragraphs that are not matching.

VS: It is decided after integration of all comments from all reviewers the paper to go under additional professional English revision.

2. The ‘red line” of the article is improved, especially regarding the results and discussion section. Nevertheless, the result section is still a bit hard to follow with respect to the chronological order. More details on that in the detailed comments on Results.

VS: Thank you for all comments I have done my best to respond to each of them.

Detailed comments by section

Introduction: The state of the private forest sector in North Macedonia is still not sufficiently distinguished from the general relevance of PFOs. (l. 55 – to the end of the section), as a separate subsection. Please add subsection 1.1. The state of the private forest sector in North Macedonia  within the introduction can be established distinguishing 

VS: Thaks, I have done improvements based on this comment.

Data Collection – Methods: Although the section was renamed and some changes were made, the section is still not clear. As indicated in the first review, a part of the first paragraph (l.100 – 117) would better suit (with some rewriting) the introduction section as they present the justification of the importance of PFOs drawing on the previous literature. The materials and methods section could then start by introducing the case study steps, clearly distinguishing between data collection methods (desktop research and identification of policy documents,  semi-structured interviews and selection of respondents, and survey) and data analysis methods. It would be still useful to present the table with analyzed policy documents and year of adoption. Also, it would be useful to know how exactly policies were analyzed (coding, tabulation, etc.). The description regarding ethical aspects of data collection should be shortened, as there are repetitive statements.

VS: Improvements were in this part. The distinction of some issues, better explanation, and rewriting.

Institutionalization: I still have a feeling that this would fit better before Materials and methods.

VS: The Chapter 3 Institutionalization 3 is moved before Chapter 2 Materials and Methods

Results: This section was significantly improved, especially in points 4.1 and 4.2, but section 4.3 still needs some improvements, as it is still mixing the results with discussion (e.g. l.429-436 belong to discussion), as indicated in the previous review.

VS: Part 4.3 improved based on your and other reviewers' comments.

Discussion: Discussion was improved. The weaknesses of the study (e.g. low number of respondents) were not reported anywhere, and this needs to be added either in this section or under the section on Materials and methods.

VS: This issue was addressed in the Materials and methods part.

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.