Could Commoning Unlock the Potential of Integrated Landscape Approaches?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This research examines how "commoning" (shared rights) as a land ownership intervention can contribute to landscape versatility and community management by analyzing two rural landscape cases in Hong Kong. It is a very interesting and fascinating topic, but as a journal paper, it needs to be further improved. Specific suggestions are as follows:

1. Introduction section: Although the article mentions the limitations of ILAs, it fails to fully explain the specific performance and impact of these limitations in practical applications, which makes the background part slightly brief. It is suggested to add more specific challenges or cases encountered in practical applications of ILAs. In addition, the correlation between the description of gap research and the content of subsequent research is not enough, so it is suggested to strengthen the logical connection of how to solve the existing gap through commoning.
2. Literature Review section: The current literature review is more of a descriptive summary, lacking a critical analysis of existing research, especially failing to delve into the root causes of ILAs failure. And the selection of literature failed to cover some of the latest research results. A more in-depth analysis of the failures of existing ILAs to explore their root causes is recommended, supplemented by a review of recent studies on commoning and land ownership innovations.
3. Methods section: For the selection of methods, it is not clear why the case study method is chosen and why the method can answer the research question well. As for the data sources, the selection criteria of interview subjects are not clear, so it is suggested to add relevant descriptions.
4. Results and discussion sections: Although the results describe the cases in detail, they lack in-depth analysis of the results and fail to fully explain how these results support answering the research questions. Moreover, the logical connection between research methods and research results is not strong enough. More in-depth analysis of the results is recommended, for example to explore how different rights configurations affect landscape versatility and community management. In addition, it is recommended to discuss the challenges and limitations commoning may face, such as insufficient policy support or conflicting stakeholder interests.

Overall, this research has some shortcomings in the research design and logic of discussion, but it provides valuable insights into the application of commoning in landscape management through two case studies.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

LAND- 3607839 Could Commoning Unlock the Potential of Integrated Landscape Approaches?

This is a well written research article but needs minor changes before publication. The reference style needs to be changed to first references numbered (1, 2 etc.) and then listed sequentially within references cited.

Abstract, Introduction and Literature review are fine as is.

Methods- There are some data management and acquisition issues. A figure that illustrates the data acquisition and analysis steps would greatly assist reader understanding the whole research design. How were the interviewees randomly selected? It would seem that purposely interviewee by category would better suit the research objectives. If the interviews were not recorded – what was the data used for coding? Please explain how this was done.

Results- It is not clear from Figures 1 and 3 where the study sites actually are. Is it the blue or red dot in each case?

Tables 3 and 4 are hard to read. Can the text be made a bit smaller to allow the reader to more easily understand the information in the tables?

Discussion is fine as is.

Conclusions- the authors should mention study limitations such as small interview sample size and coding process. This then should lead to future research needed.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

English usage is fine as is.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In this round of revision, the authors made comprehensive and in-depth modifications to the manuscript, achieving significant improvements in theoretical framework, research questions, and methodology. This manuscript is now more mature and persuasive, especially in integrating the introduction with the literature review, clarifying the challenges of ILAs, and introducing commoning as a solution. There are still some details will further strengthen promotion:

This manuscript repeatedly mentioned commoning promotes "mixed land uses", but in the results and discussion, to this kind of "mix" of the specific type and commoning mechanism, how to led directly to the analysis of this kind of "mix" can be more outstanding.

Of course, these are further suggested, if can further polished, the manuscript will be more perfect.

Author Response

Thank you for pointing this out. We agree with your comment. 

To better articulate how commoning leads to mixed land uses and community stewardship, we have made revisions in several places of the manuscript (highlighted in yellow). 

We slighted modified the wording of the research question on page 4, line 131-134. It is now worded as, " the question of how to accommodate different land use interests, balance land development and conservation, and incentivize stewardship based on stakeholders’ capacities lies at the centre of understanding commoning as an ILA approach."

And then, as the reviewer suggested, we enhanced the summaries of institutional analysis and tables at the end of each case, and elaborated on how the design of boundary rules and choice rules entailed institutional diversity which then enabled different levels of participation from stakeholders. They can take different positions based on their land use interests and capacities to contribute to land conservation, which led to mixed land uses and multi-level stewardship activities. The revisions can be found on page 9-10, line 314-328, and on page 14, line 399-413, both highlighted in yellow. 

Then in the section of discussion, particularly in section 4.2, we again discussed in detail how commoning could encourage institutional diversity and different levels of participation as well as mixed land uses from stakeholders through rule making. Please see page 17-18, line 481-493, and line 511-529. 

We updated the conclusion to align with the rest of the paper.