Assessing the Effectiveness and Justice of Protected Areas Governance: Issues and Situated Pathways to Environmental Policies in Río Negro National Park, Paraguay

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is relevant to the field and covers an interesting topic but lacks clarity in terms of structure and explaining the concepts. For example, “socio-ecological justice framework” or “earth system governance architectures” could be better elaborated. Tables can be used to better structure the article, for example results part, making sub-titles about the content.

Also, it would be good to formulate the RQ. There is an aim of the paper, but the RQ is not really presented.

It is better not to use abbreviations in the abstract. At the end of the introduction please, introduce the reader to further content of the paper, what to expect in the next sections.  

It needs to be specified more about semi-structured in-depth interviews (with who, what were the questions), about a focus group discussion (the same here, who were in the group, what was discussed?), participant observation (where, and what?). These can be added in the appendices.

The references are relevant but only a few are the most recent. It would be useful to add more references that are recent.

Few comments are added in the attached file

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We hereby resubmit our paper, “Assessing the effectiveness and fairness of Protected Areas Governance: issues and situated pathways to environmental policies in Río Negro National Park, Paraguay,” after incorporating the recommendations made by all three reviewers.

The reviews concentrated on presenting the research question more clearly, better explaining some key concepts of the theoretical framework, detailing methods, and some reorganization of how the results are presented, including a table.

The specific answers for each comment are presented in the attached document and included in the manuscript, where the main changes are highlighted in yellow.

We appreciate the time each of you dedicated to guiding the improvement of our paper. Thank you very much for helping us.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments, annotations and suggestions are directly included in the attached manuscript.

Comments for author File: Comments.docx

Author Response

Dear reviewer 2,

We hereby resubmit our paper, “Assessing the effectiveness and fairness of Protected Areas Governance: issues and situated pathways to environmental policies in Río Negro National Park, Paraguay,” after incorporating the recommendations made by all three reviewers.

The reviews concentrated on presenting the research question more clearly, better explaining some key concepts of the theoretical framework, detailing methods, and some reorganization of how the results are presented, including a table.

The specific answers for each comment are presented in the attached document and included in the manuscript, where the main changes are highlighted in yellow.

We appreciate the time each of you dedicated to guiding the improvement of our paper. Thank you very much for helping us.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Authors

Reviewer 3 Report

The theme, topic, and geographic focus of the paper are important and should be considered priorities for research in the field. The intersection of effective and fair governance of PAs are crucial, particularly with regard to the current Convention on Biological Diversity COP and the recent Climate COP and associated agreements/resolutions. My comments here are meant to strengthen the paper, rather than being overly critical.

The paper uses a qualitative case study approach to assess effectiveness and fairness of the governance of the particular PA at the focus of the study.  This approach generates rich data but can be unwieldy to systematically and objectively analyze.   Moreover, the volume of data (all of which are important to the researcher) are difficult to digest for other researchers and scientists.   The paper suffers from this wealth of data, particularly in the presentation of results. My first suggestion is to utilize an existing stakeholder profile tool to depict the essential information regarding stake and rightsholders in a way that is more accessible to the reader. There is insufficient systematization in the presentation of each stakeholder group with respect to the two dimensions that the results section introduction promises to present.  As such, it is difficult for the reader to logically connect the rich text with the purported findings. As a result the findings come off as overly subjective and ill-supported. This could be remedied through better systematization of the information related to stakeholders. Relatedly, the second section of the 'results' section on Interactions and Power Relations is insufficiently supported.  This section appears subjective rather than empirically supported by the data presented earlier. There are multiple frameworks for assessing power relationships and interactions that the author could reference or utilize to make a stronger and more empirically robust case. In both cases I hesitate to point the author toward a specific tool so as not to bias them or privilege other authors. With the stakeholder analysis, the toolkits are easily identifiable through a google scholar search. With regard to systematizing and empirically linking the interactions and power relations, I would refer the author to the book 'Collaborative Governance Regimes' by Emmerson and Nabatchi as a good starting point.

An issue that I see as pervasive across the text is the outdated literature cited in the study. From my estimate, the bulk of citations are >7+ years old or more. In the interim, a wealth of systematic qualitative and quantitative studies have come out to support various theoretical and empirical aspects of the paper. For instance, the author refers to Tourism and economic interdependence as a potential vehicle for a linking dimension of social capital creation. There are prominent texts in Nature Sustainability, Science, and others that scrutinize this very effectively and provide robust evidence on the strengths and limits of such a vehicle that are not considered or cited in the current draft. Similarly, power and collaboration have been recently examined in Conservation Biology, Conservation Letters, and other conservation focused journals. Many prominent recent articles are omitted in the current draft. Aside from the conservation field, the social sciences and conflict resolution disciplines have recently brought several important contributions forward that the author should consider in their dealing with power, justice, and fairness. In particular, aspects of procedural, distributive, and retributive justice are absent in the author's dealing with power and interaction. These may not be 'required' for the case study to be published, but it is worth taking a second look at the recent literature and updating some of the older citations.

A further comment is that there is some editorial work required. There is inconsistent application of capital vs. lower case letters in the in-text citations and reference sections. Several citations (including those by Pope) are missing from the reference section altogether despite in-text citation. There are also multiple sections where the grammar is imprecise or confusing (an illustrative example is found on p. 18, saying "This the case with the local communities of the RNNP due to, mainly: insufficient community cohesion, a lack of organizational capacity among community members, and distrust among the rural and indigenous community members."

The text requires a solid copy-edit and revision once the above comments are addressed. 

Again, these comments are meant to strengthen the paper. A qualitative case study is an ambitious format due to the volume and idiosyncrasies of the data. This methodological choice demands high levels of systematization to avoid subjectivity and unsubstantiated policy recommendations.  There is still a bit of work to be done to adequately support the stance the authors take in the 'findings' and 'conclusion' sections, particularly with respect to UNESCO designation and shared governance models.

Lastly, some aspects of the paper require further clarification. For instance, the author describes the qualitative methodological approach but neglects to identify when field work was conducted (p 8 & 9). They refer to some documents including a UNESCO application (p.11) without citing them. They include some acronyms without explaining them, such as PAG (p. 17). They also inaccurately describe their work as advancing a 'bottom-up' approach (p. 18) when in fact it is a framework imposed on a case study by an external researcher.  Such claims run contrary to the principles of justice and fairness that the article espouses and undermine its credibility. 

I believe this paper is eventually a publishable contribution to the literature, but before recommending it for acceptance I believe the above aspects should be considered.

Author Response

Dear reviewer 3,

We hereby resubmit our paper, “Assessing the effectiveness and fairness of Protected Areas Governance: issues and situated pathways to environmental policies in Río Negro National Park, Paraguay,” after incorporating the recommendations made by all three reviewers.

The reviews concentrated on presenting the research question more clearly, better explaining some key concepts of the theoretical framework, detailing methods, and some reorganization of how the results are presented, including a table.

The specific answers for each comment are presented in the attached document and included in the manuscript, where the main changes are highlighted in yellow.

We appreciate the time each of you dedicated to guiding the improvement of our paper. Thank you very much for helping us.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Authors

---------------------------------------------------------

Review 3

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

-The theme, topic, and geographic focus of the paper are important and should be considered priorities for research in the field. The intersection of effective and fair governance of PAs are crucial, particularly with regard to the current Convention on Biological Diversity COP and the recent Climate COP and associated agreements/resolutions. My comments here are meant to strengthen the paper, rather than being overly critical.

ANSWER: Thank you very much for your comments. They were crucial to improving this manuscript.

-The paper uses a qualitative case study approach to assess effectiveness and fairness of the governance of the particular PA at the focus of the study.  This approach generates rich data but can be unwieldy to systematically and objectively analyze.   Moreover, the volume of data (all of which are important to the researcher) are difficult to digest for other researchers and scientists.   The paper suffers from this wealth of data, particularly in the presentation of results. My first suggestion is to utilize an existing stakeholder profile tool to depict the essential information regarding stake and rightsholders in a way that is more accessible to the reader. There is insufficient systematization in the presentation of each stakeholder group with respect to the two dimensions that the results section introduction promises to present. As such, it is difficult for the reader to logically connect the rich text with the purported findings. As a result, the findings come off as overly subjective and ill-supported. This could be remedied through better systematization of the information related to stakeholders.

ANSWER: In the new version, we include some paragraphs that summarize the core of each results subsection in terms of the component “actors” (the who). Additionally, we now include new figures and tables.

-Relatedly, the second section of the l'results' section on Interactions and Power Relations is insufficiently supported.  This section appears subjective rather than empirically supported by the data presented earlier. There are multiple frameworks for assessing power relationships and interactions that the author could reference or utilize to make a stronger and more empirically robust case. In both cases I hesitate to point the author toward a specific tool so as not to bias them or privilege other authors. With the stakeholder analysis, the toolkits are easily identifiable through a google scholar search. With regard to systematizing and empirically linking the interactions and power relations, I would refer the author to the book 'Collaborative Governance Regimes' by Emmerson and Nabatchi as a good starting point.

Answer: Thank you for raising this point. We now include a table withempirical data regarding how we construct this section. The baseline information on the RNNP governance system gathered during the research process shows a weak legal framework (the what of the governance system – Figure 2), with the absence of a law approved by the Parliament for the secured protection and continuation of the PA, as well as the lack of a management plan approved by all rights- and stakeholders. It can be argued that such weakness contributes to the disempowerment of the already vulnerable actors, strengthening the actors with better levels of organization and economic power, identified in the mapping of interactions and power relations in the RNNP.

-An issue that I see as pervasive across the text is the outdated literature cited in the study. From my estimate, the bulk of citations are >7+ years old or more. In the interim, a wealth of systematic qualitative and quantitative studies have come out to support various theoretical and empirical aspects of the paper. For instance, the author refers to Tourism and economic interdependence as a potential vehicle for a linking dimension of social capital creation. There are prominent texts in Nature Sustainability, Science, and others that scrutinize this very effectively and provide robust evidence on the strengths and limits of such a vehicle that are not considered or cited in the current draft. Similarly, power and collaboration have been recently examined in Conservation Biology, Conservation Letters, and other conservation focused journals. Many prominent recent articles are omitted in the current draft. Aside from the conservation field, the social sciences and conflict resolution disciplines have recently brought several important contributions forward that the author should consider in their dealing with power, justice, and fairness. In particular, aspects of procedural, distributive, and retributive justice are absent in the author's dealing with power and interaction. These may not be 'required' for the case study to be published, but it is worth taking a second look at the recent literature and updating some of the older citations.

ANSWERS: We include some new references, including many recent references. These are highlighted in green. We also paid attention to adding information about mechanisms to foster collective action, for example, by implementing the social learning process.

-A further comment is that there is some editorial work required. There is inconsistent application of capital vs. lower case letters in the in-text citations and reference sections.

Several citations (including those by Pope) are missing from the reference section altogether despite in-text citations. There are also multiple sections where the grammar is imprecise or confusing (an illustrative example is found on p. 18, saying, "This the case with the local communities of the RNNP due to, mainly: insufficient community cohesion, a lack of organizational capacity among community members, and distrust among the rural and indigenous community members."The text requires a solid copy-edit and revision once the above comments are addressed.

ANSWER: The revised article has been professionally proofread and edited by a native speaker. References were reviewed and added.

-Again, these comments are meant to strengthen the paper. A qualitative case study is an ambitious format due to the volume and idiosyncrasies of the data. This methodological choice demands high levels of systematization to avoid subjectivity and unsubstantiated policy recommendations.  There is still a bit of work to be done to adequately support the stance the authors take in the 'findings' and 'conclusion' sections, particularly with respect to UNESCO designation and shared governance models.

ANSWER: Considering your important comment, in the new version, we decided to exclude some parts and concentrate on developing robust evidence to support our key finding. Therefore, the policy recommendation related to UNESCO was deleted, while we introduced a part regarding increasing collective action and social capital using the social learning approach.

-Lastly, some aspects of the paper require further clarification. For instance, the author describes the qualitative methodological approach but neglects to identify when field work was conducted (p 8 & 9). They refer to some documents including a UNESCO application (p.11) without citing them. They include some acronyms without explaining them, such as PAG (p. 17).

ANSWER: We now present more information about the methodological phases, including a figure with the methodological framework, and when the study was conducted. An additional appendix also presents details of the methods applied.

-They also inaccurately describe their work as advancing a 'bottom-up' approach (p. 18) when in fact it is a framework imposed on a case study by an external researcher.  Such claims run contrary to the principles of justice and fairness that the article espouses and undermine its credibility.

ANSWER: This is a very important issue. We deleted this point. In fact, with these sentences, we would like to express that this study highlights the importance of inclusive actions based on bottom-up approaches. In addition, we want to note that our research intends to reveal local actors' perspectives and knowledge.  We apologize for writing it incorrectly.

-I believe this paper is eventually a publishable contribution to the literature, but before recommending it for acceptance, I believe the above aspects should be considered.

ANSWER: Thank you very much for all your important recommendations for reviewing this article. They were essential to improve this article.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for addressing the comments!

Few more minor comments to take into consideration:

Figure 5 "The governance system actors" has two columns but the columns are not defined. How they differ?

Make sure that research questions formulated in the introduction are clearly answered in the conclusions. 

Please, double check English in the revised parts, minor edits might be needed. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer 1

We hereby resubmit our paper, “Assessing the effectiveness and justice of Protected Areas Governance: issues and situated pathways to environmental policies in Río Negro National Park, Paraguay,” after incorporating the recommendations made by the two reviewers.

The reviews concentrated on presenting the research questions more clearly, avoiding the “power relations” focus, and then better connecting the theoretical framework, operational indicators, and the evidence found in the study case.

The specific answers for each comment are presented in the document attached (Reviewers 1 and 2). In the manuscript, the main changes are highlighted in yellow.

We appreciate the time each of you dedicated to guiding the improvement of our paper.

We thank you very much and look forward to hearing from you.

The Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have made some of the recommended revisions, including updating references to more current literature and addressing some of the conceptual and grammatical issues in the earlier version. 

In a few areas, the authors have not yet fully articulated a clear and consistent paper on key conceptual elements. For instance, the earlier version was not ready for publication due to a lack of clarity around the concepts of Justice the authors had introduced. In the second version, the authors include some citations but do not define the terms nor operationalize them. Additionally, they introduce a term which is not well supported theoretically (recognition justice). Instead of effectively articulating these concepts (which seem integral to their underlying assumptions in the paper), the default to operationalizing 'fairness' and parenthetically reference justice, implying an equivalence or substitutability that is not theoretically accurate. The two constructs are in deed related, but not substitutable. In their description of the socio-ecological justice model, they describe in broad and general terms what the components are, but not how they are observed, measured, defined, or operationalized. They argue that this model is aligned with a new trend in critical explorations of justice, but do not adequately articulate the depth of the concepts/constructs.

Similar to their lack of clear exploration of justice, the authors key arguments include reference to 'power' without fully articulating that construct or defining it. There is a long, rich literature (from Global North and South) discussing power, particularly related to natural resources and conservation, however that is not clearly articulated nor cited here. There are also practical guides on power used in the conservation space that could be good stand-ins for a more thorough theoretical description.  The authors really need articulate exactly what they mean by 'power relations' and how they define and measure the power of each stakeholder group.  The text as written assumes the reader has a shared understanding of power as the authors. 

My earlier review suggested that they authors could make the text more accessible by creating a stakeholder matrix to distill long narrative into a more intuitive and accessible format for the readers. The authors include graphic 5 which simply lists the actors, but does not articulate any information regarding their needs, interests, position, nor power. As a result, when the reader arrives at the diagram also labeled figure 5 - mapping of interactions and power relations... they have insufficient information to make sense of this graphic. For accessibility sake, I recommend strongly that they 1) define clearly what they mean by 'power' and 2)  distill the stakeholder information into a more thorough stakeholder profile matrix prior to presenting their mapping. There are multiple examples available, but a good tool is included in the Conflict Sensitive Conservation Practitioners Manual (IISD 2009).

In its current form, this is an interesting case study, but theoretically and conceptually the central constructs of justice and power are insufficiently articulated to support the conclusions drawn. For the authors to provide a case study with lessons that can be extrapolated to other cases/protected areas, I strongly encourage them to be more explicit with their dealings of these two central constructs.

Author Response

Dear reviewer 3

We hereby resubmit our paper, “Assessing the effectiveness and justice of Protected Areas Governance: issues and situated pathways to environmental policies in Río Negro National Park, Paraguay,” after incorporating the recommendations made by the two reviewers.

The reviews concentrated on presenting the research questions more clearly, avoiding the “power relations” focus, and then better connecting the theoretical framework, operational indicators, and the evidence found in the study case.

The specific answers for each comment are presented in the document attached (Reviewers 1 and 2). In the manuscript, the main changes are highlighted in yellow.

We appreciate the time each of you dedicated to guiding the improvement of our paper.

We thank you very much and look forward to hearing from you.

The Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have produced a much more robust and conceptually clear contribution. The tension I previously raised wherein the issue of 'power' was insufficiently articulated has been addressed well and in a manner that maintains the importance of the concept for the topic of study in the paper without having to fully and thoroughly explore the 'power' issue in their current study.

The graphics that the authors include are more conceptually clear and more intuitive for the reader. 

The scholarship regarding protected areas and community engagement is still relatively nascent in the social sciences, so this paper does make a solid contribution. There is a need for field-based social scientific evidence, particularly in many areas of the world where data has been limited and data collection dominated by global north scholars and paradigms. 

I look forward to seeing this in print.