Protected Natural Spaces, Agrarian Specialization and the Survival of Rural Territories: The Cases of Sierra Nevada (Spain) and Alta Murgia (Italy)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper is a very interesting reflection on the role of protected areas for land management, agricultural and rural development, analyzed on two cases of National, respectively Natural Parks in Southern Spain and Southern Italy. In my view this focus is highly appropriate to show the interrelations and point to specific needs for local action and future development of these contexts. The authors build on their long standing experience in assessing these issues, in particular linked to local development organization, most directly reflected in implementing the European LEADER programmes, but also other Interreg and national and regional policy strategies and plans. The paper provides a very comprehensive and long presentation of the two cases of Sierra Nevada (Spain) and Alta Murgia (Italy) in a structure that is demanding to the reader as it lists trends observed and discussion points for each of the analyzed cases separately. With 25 pages of text this presentation is long and might gain from synthesizing findings and a more direct comparison of the two cases.

Beyond that structural aspect of the paper, I’d like to mention some comments on the contents. I would see two main aspects here: the first is to enhance clarity about the geographical spaces on which the paper reports, the second is a demand for considering additional literature, in particular on themes and aspects relevant to the core question of the paper and decisive drivers of trends.

Enhancing clarity on spatial information/definitions: The analysis distinguishes between National Park, Natural Park and other protected areas, and mentions „surrounding areas“. Moreover, the crucial role of „dynamic towns and villages“ within the park areas is mentioned. However, no clear spatial location and connection is revealed in the paper, nor an explanation of the different „protection“ parts and „surrounding“ parts is provided. Yet such an information would be crucial to understand the spatial background of the analysis: There are some indications on the size of the areas provided, but these don’t match to 100% of the areas with protection status (or of the region or any other reference level).

A second aspect with regard to protection areas is the explanation of the different status of protection and rules and land mangement options linked to the respective status. In particular, that information would have important implication for the interpretation of land use and livestock trends within each of the sub-areas, interrelations and changes, and divergent aspects to neighbouring areas or larger scale influences (national/global).

There are also some abbreviations that are hardly explained, or shown differently in Figures (due to language differences, probably) or not applied throughout the paper. The PSI (Production Specialization Index - PSI) is defined as ISP (line 272), so please check these abbreviations carefully.

Summing up this concern, an overview Table or presentation on the different protection categories, size of areas, and maybe also key indicators and trends might be useful and make the information better accesible for the reader.

Discussion of core themes in the paper: I acknowledge the detailed discussion in the introduction and theoretical framework chapter. Literature used is primarily based on Mediterranean literature, with the exception of several core publications on protection areas development from a European perspective. This focus is understandable and pays attention to the regional contexts analyzed. However, in the introduction, and also the discussion more reflection on the international discourse would be useful. I’ll give some indication on the main gaps seen and provide some hopefully relevant examples:

Literature on international discourse might be included, relating to discussions oft eh role of „rural amenities“ (OECD 1999), shifts in perception and notion of nature protection at international level, including stronger relation to rural development impacts (De Fries et al 2007, Jungmeier et al. 2021, Prados 2009; Pallares-Blanch 2012, EURPARC Foundation 2018, journal eco.mont etc.), social aspects (Holmes 2013, Jones et al. 2020), refer to option of Biosphere Reserve (Reed and Price 2020), provision of ecosystem services (e.g. in H2020 project PEGASUS; Special Issue in Ecosystem Services journal by Schirpke et al. 2021), conservation strategies (Hoffmann et al. 2018), branding and use of natural assets, role of value chains etc. (FP6 project TERESA), relation of land use change to protected areas and mountains, e.g. through land abandonment, respectively intensification. Moreover, an assessment of structural stange of farming management and nature-based development in mountain regions would be of particular relevance as backdrop to the context of land use and livestiock trends in protected areas.

Further detailed questions arising from the introductory section include: An assesment of the role of mountain tourism and niche types of „sustianble tourism“ with particular relevance in/for protected areas; an extended discussion of the contested aspect of nature protection development, and dependance on relationship to non-protected areas, mutual relationship and effects on land use regulations and options; the issue of scale and impact on ecological performance and local development effects; an exploration of cause-effect relationships, implications of „belt areas“ development (see Biosphere Reserve discussions); role of management competition and farming concentration trends etc.

In the discussion section a reflected comparison of the two National and Natural Parks findings would be meaningful. Relevant topics to be addressed include spatial trends, with concentration, abandonment, shifts and innovations in vlaue chain organizations; other drivers to changes of the structure and production systems, including large-scale influences and global changes; needs and incentives for protection action, more thorough reflection on „traditional“ farming activities and crops (lines 692-699), with a view on the role of quality strategies, regional production focus and labelling as an asset and outcome of protected areas linkages etc. CAP potentital should be assessed more specifically and not just by mentioning „for example from CAP“ (line 738) as this would be particularly interesting in the context of protected areas development. Also specific periods of CAP should be defined more clearly (e.g. „first CAP“?, line 875)

The role of protected areas and trends should be explored and presented in more detail. This means to link to overarching trends of park development which might go beyond the specific cases of the two parks analyzed, specific constraints in these areas, relevance of the specific settlement structures and other contextual influences.

Part of the presentation in the discussion section (e.g. lines 800-818) seem more appropriate for the methodological presentation and the regional context, and hence should be shifted there.

On Conclusion: It would be important to relate the beneficial effects and resurgence addressed more closely to the analysis in the paper. In this regard the paper indirectly refers tot eh European Farming Model, and its cocnept of multifunctionality – it might be logical to refer to that discussion and European notion of farming.

On the conclusion(s) for the National Parks and Natural Parks I doubt whether the separate presentation of findings is useful. Shouldn’t a common message emerge from the interpretation of trends in these interlinked spaces? And moreover, shouldn’t an interpretation also integrate border/belt areas and relationship to more intensively used farming areas? Again here the lack of clear conceptual designation and definition of protected areas (types of protection) might lead to misunderstandings, and at least an unclear presentation of findings. On the last paragraph, I wonder whether these arguments are based on actual observations and place-specific findings or a vague argument on future potential developments. Anyhow the final assessment that quantitative and qualitative analysis is needed is very much supported and important for future research on this issue.

The topic of the paper has particular potential and might be a very relevant publication in the field. I'd like to suggest therefore a thorough revision and amendments on the above described points:

* clarification of protection areas definition, size and extention of protection types and comparability of cases.

* inclusion of further literature of European coverage, and discussion of additional topics, framework conditions for relating rural development to protected areas conditions and regulations,

* and clear conclusions of main findings.

(Moreover the scope of the paper should rather be limited and be presented in a "shorter" paper, so no extension should result from the revision).

References:

De Fries, R. et al. (2007) Land Use Change around Protected Areas: Management to Balance Human Needs and Ecological Function. Ecological Applications 17(4), 1031-1038.

Hoffmann, S. et al. (2018) Uniqueness of Protected Areas for Conservation Stratregies in the European Union. Scientific Reports 8, 6445.

Holmes, G. (2013) Exploring the Relationship Between Local support and the Success of Protected Areas. Conservation & Society  11(1), pp. 72-82.

Jones, N. et al. (2020) Social impacts of European Protected Areas and policy recommendations. Environmental Science and Policy 112, 134-140.

Jungmeier, M., et al. (2021) Pärke, Parks and Reservate – biosphere reserves in Austria, Germany and Switzerland on their way towards Biosphere 4.0? eco.mont 13, 15-26.

OECD (1999) Cultivating Rural Amenities, An Economic Development Perspective. Paris.

Pallares-Blanch, M. (2012) Natural Protected Areas and Rural/Local Development: A Sustainable Strategy in remote Areas. Urbani izziv 23(2), 87-96.

Prados, M.J. (2009) Naturbanization. New identities and processes for rural-natural areas. CRC Press, Leiden (NL).

Schirpke, U. (2021) Editorial: Mountain landscapes: Protected areas, ecosystem services, and future challenges. Ecosystem Services 49, 101302.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer
see attached file in which you will find the answers to your comments.
Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

First, I would like to congratulate authors for the research, it is very interesting in the field of knowledge that it occupies.

The manuscript “Protected natural spaces, agrarian specialization, and the survival of rural territories. The cases of Sierra Nevada (Spain) and Alta Murgia (Italia)” is an interesting investigation whose aim is to compare two protected areas, from Granada (Spain) and Apulia (Italy) to identify similarities and/or differences, regarding for example local enterprise.

The research is clear, but I consider that some points or aspects are not well exposed, being this the main problem of the manuscript. For this reason, I think that authors should consider the following issues to improve the quality of the manuscript:

Best wishes.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer
see attached file in which you will find the answers to your comments.
Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper represents a popular and very contemporary topic that needs more research in the future. The theoretical framework part is too long for this type of paper. It needs to be shortened so that it only deals with the research topic, without the general theories and information.

Material, methods, and study area

My main concern is the study area which is not well presented. There is more information about the study area in the results section than here. The main factors influencing agricultural changes as well as agricultural land itself should be presented on separate maps for better understanding of these areas (National parks).

Results

Better indicators for National parks (protection) influences on agriculture is needed. The results are a bit speculative. For example, lines 393-396. You are speculating about reasons of change. This is present in other parts of the paper as well. Could you find some type of data that shows a direct link between protection activities and their infuences on agriculture. Maybe there should be an analysis of environmental and other factors influencing the mentioned changes. There are a lot of papers researching this subject which could help in the discussion of your results.

The whole paper is based on the comparison of two National parks via two indexes for two years (1990 and 2010). I recommend expanding the methodology with better analysis of factors influencing the changes instead of speculation by the authors. During the study period of 20 years there are always a lot of changes so we need to know the mechanisms of changes and not just that they happened.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer
see attached file in which you will find the answers to your comments.
Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for this revised version of the manuscript. As I could see from this revision, many comments were addressed and the current draft reflects most issues of the previous review round. In particular, I see the effort to integrate (some) international literature in the presentation of the topic and the dicussion section, a thorough reconsideration and presentation of the reasoning for selecting the two case studies and the description of key indicators, and an amendment of the discussion section.

By checking changes in the current version I realized that some sentences might need careful checking (of grammatical structures or words etc.). So I would ask to carefully check the recent additions before publication, in particular, this refers to:

·       Line 201: ?

·       Line 204ff. why of specific interest just for metropolitan areas?

·       Line 220: National Park?

·       Check of use of indication: National/Nature Parks or national/nature parks (for both CS), big or small letters?

·       Line 789: first CAP? (first phase of CAP or?)

·       Line 910: check commas …

·       Line 990: belonging to?

·       Line 996: also or rather: even if/albeit etc.?

·       Line 1015ff: LEADER/SNAI included in sentence on COVID-19 results/changes. I’d rather separate the two since COVID seems recent (more short-term) and LEADER and Inner Areas in Italy rather a long-term programme activity. Moreover, COVID assessment might go beyond teh scope of the paper; I would shorten this and combine discussion of this paragraph with research proposal of next paragraph.

Taking account of these minor issues I would support publication of the manuscript.

Author Response

The responses to the reviewers are attached to the file. Thanks for the comments and suggestions made.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I consider that the authors have carried out an adequate revision of the manuscript following the recommendations.

Thank you very much.

Best wishes.

Author Response

The responses to the reviewers are attached to the file. Thanks for the comments and suggestions made.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you for improving your manuscript. However, I fell that this is not enough to justify publication in a journal of this level. The main issue is still the methodology and the research scope itself. It has to be enriched with other input data (factors) for this type of journal. Speculation is something not acceptable at this level. The change between two censuses is also not enough. You did not analyze the factors influencing the changes which should be the most important part of such a research.

Author Response

The responses to the reviewers are attached to the file. Thanks for the comments and suggestions made.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx