Determinants and Challenges of Community Sand Forest Management in Vietnam

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The structure of the article has been significantly improved. However, as a whole it is not very consistent with the title, and I have included the solution to this problem - along with detailed comments - below.

 

Title

I strongly suggest changing the title to: Determinants and Challenges of Community Forest Management of Sand Forests in Vietnam (or eventually: Determinants and Challenges of Community Sand Forest Management in Vietnam). The current version of the title does not fully reflect the content of the article, plus it contains too much location details. They can be placed in the scope of work and description of the research location. The new title corresponds much better to the content of the article, if it is not changed, the content of the article will have to be changed to better fit the title

 

Keywords

Ideally, they should not repeat the title, as this will narrow the search for the article in e.g. the Scopus database. Instead of the not very meaningful "community perception" I suggest "ecosystem services"

Further comments apply to text with a corrected title. Otherwise the article should be rebuilt to match the current title.

 

Introduction

The first four sentences are completely disconnected from the rest of the text, and additionally refer to two also unrelated issues.

LL39-46 - I propose to give more details on CFM in these countries/regions

L56-63 - I suggest using this in the Discussion of the results

L64 - a long time ago - please make this more specific, as it is a very relative concept

L78-82 - after this paragraph, it would be useful to describe in detail what the mechanism of creating a village convention is - who does it, who participates, under what rules, how it is updated, etc.

L90-91 - the sentence "Untill..." is redundant, it follows on from the earlier text, and unnecessarily disrupts a certain logical sequence

Aim - the main one, resulting from the new title of the article, should be given first, and then those issues which are currently given as the aim should be given as detailed elements of the aim

 

Material and methods

L166-167 - "zachęcaliśmy uczestników do podzielenia się swoimi opiniami na temat głównych okresów dotyczących powyższych zmian" - jakich okresów? należy to uzupełnić

L174 - „to collect data related to household’s lives at the household level” - should this not have been included in the earlier information  („to collect data related to local people's perception of the roles of the sand forests and stakeholder relations in sand forest management”)?

L194-196 - in relation to the study of the role of forests before and after 2005 you says: In each question, respondents chose 1 of 5 options, including not important, less important, neutral, important, and very important. However, this is not shown in Table 3 in the Results. So surely a Likert scale was used in questions about the role of forests? If this is an error, please describe the rules for selecting answers from the available options (one or more than one, how many?)

L201 (end of Subchapter 2.2.3) - should be added: The role of stakeholders in governing the sand forest was analysed using Likert scale [18]: "not important", "less important", "neutral", "important", and "very important".

 

Results and Discussion

Chapters 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 are mainly results, they lack discussion, literature references.

L223 - the beginning of the sentence is lost (in a previous version of the article it was: "The sand forests have existed for a long time and played essential role in the local life in the")

Text above Table 2 - the date 1975 is given several times there, whereas in Table 2 it is 1979 - why the discrepancy? I understand that the time division in Table 2 is due to the form of the convention. It is worth explaining this also in the text above the table.

L282-284 - it is worth emphasising that these are contemporary times

L305 - after 'the clan head' please explain in brackets who this is

L324 - 'Law on Forest Protection and Protection' - mistake in name

L325 - superfluous "In which"

L344 - the PERCEPTED roles...

L354 - I propose to put the first word in plural (Conflicts)

Table 5 - add everywhere before the "Community awareness" columns the "Convention" columns (or "Law" or "Regulations", with a short Yes or No) to remind what the current rules are in this area. The idea is to juxtapose the rules, people's awareness of them and the practice of a particular forest use. The title of the table should also be modified to better reflect its content

L362 - "Conflict between villages with villages owning sand forest" - I understand that the former villages do not own such forests - please add this to make it clear (this also applies to conflict 2)

L372-373 - "This finding showed that there is still a difference between the provisions of the convention and the practice" - this finding showed difference between the AWARENESS of the provisions and the practice. If the columns in Table 5 are added, as I mentioned above, then the current text in L372-373 will be ok. Though of course the issue of awareness is also worth adding in this sentence.

L443-444 - "the survey results showed that the majority of people participated in discussing community convention" - either I do not understand or this was not presented in the Methodology and Results. I have not noticed information before that people were asked about their participation in creating a community convention (by expressing their opinion/discussion). Please revise this text or include the missing information in the Methodology and Results

L455 - I think instead of 'ineffective' it should be 'in effective'?

L462-464 - is this about their actual role or how people see it? because these are two completely different issues!

L478-482 - why should the stakeholders outside the community have the same rights as those inside the community? if this forest belongs to the community and is a limited resource, perhaps the main right to manage it should belong to the community after all? maybe rather a system of consultation with the outside stakeholders, but with no obligation to implement their suggestions?

 

Conclusions

Please add another sentence in the first paragraph extending the information on the role of forests, and a sentence in the second paragraph providing information on conflicts. After all, these are the results of the research carried out, which should be briefly summarised in Conclusions

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a worthy article and suitable for publication. Some suggestions and comments are made below.

1. Line 60 should have 'it has' instead of 'it is'
2. Line 91 should be 'aim' not 'aimed'
3. Line 93 should be 'discuss' not 'discussed'
4. Quote on lines 229-30 is without any reference.
5. Sentences in italics on lines 376 and 392 I am wondering whether these are meant to be subheadings and dealt with differently than the way they are presented. Just questioning, not necessarily a must have change.
6. I have made reference to the discussion of regulation before. I realise this is not an article about regulation as such and the authors are not legal scholars as far as I am aware. However the article is discussing law/regulation, in part, and its impact on local forest management. The discussion in lines 75 - 77, 257-258, 324 -337 and 349 - 52 highlight that the Forestry Law encourages integration of village conventions with community forest management. Further, that there has been no actual legal transfer and this impedes the management function between stakeholders. Also, that the village council and village head are not legally recognised in management of the sand forest, and that they are recognized by local peoples perception and protected by convention but without express legal recognition. 

          I believe the article can be improved by clarification or commentary on why this legal recognition and transfer has not yet occurred, and whether it may occur and reasons for either. I just think some clarification of this policy reluctance to transfer legal recognition when the law allows for this, if I have read this properly, will provide some context to the later discussion. By doing this it provides clarity to lines 411 -412 which in my view, as it is currently expressed, is unclear about the status of this legal recognition. I think it is saying it needs to occur but in its current wording in lines 411-12 is a little ambiguous. Also unclear about the meaning of sentence in lines 415 - 416 'It may create a de-facto open-access arrangements.' It would also clarify lines 504-505 which refers to legal recognition of sand forests but does not clarify to whom. If it is to local communities as indicated by the following sentence it should say so.

Overall this is a worthy article and recommend publication subject to the foregoing albeit relatively minor points and corrections.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Thank you

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The article has been much improved, but there are still some shortcomings, which I list below.

 

Abstract

L21 – superfluous repetition of "in the Coastal North Central, Vietnam", this was already in an earlier sentence

 

Introduction

L88-89 – „Therefore, community forest management is one of the initiatives to reduce deforestation and forest degradation to address the negative impacts on rural livelihoods [3].” - this sentence repeats the previous content, which is at the end of the previous paragraph („CFM models in Asia-Pacific region offer opportunities to improve local livelihoods, reduce deforestation and improve forest quality, and strengthen good governance”). This should be combined somehow and only given in one place.

L101 – please explain the statement "across its history" a little better

L131-132 – all the sentence „Villagers still maintain the village convention to manage these sand forests” is redundant, it follows on from the earlier text, and unnecessarily disrupts a certain logical sequence

 

Results and Discussion

L280 – redundant "in" between "researches" and "related"

L284 – are higher „located” than….? otherwise you can understand that it is about tall trees in the forest

L308 – „In order to restore degradation of sand forest…”  - it should rather be „In order to stop the degradation of the sand forest…”

Subchapter 3.2 – there is a lack of broader discussion, citation of other publications - this should be supplemented

L387 – „the clan head and village council (village head and hamlet heads)” – this is still not very clear. Is the clan head the same as the village head (if not - which is what Table 4 implies - then who is the clan head?)? Is it the village council that consists of the village head and hamlet heads?

L390 – „local authorities” – Who is that? village head?

L404-405 – „People who are living in the village or working far away (or NOT FAR AWAY??) are buried in the village’s sand forest (village cemetery) when they die” – Why then is 'No' marked in the 'Regulation' columns in Table 5? Please check the correctness of the table

L445 – instead of 'belongs to the same commune', it should be 'which belong to ...' (the same applies to the Conclusions chapter)

L480-492 – I propose to move this passage (from "As definition of some scholars..." to the end of the paragraph)  to the end of the section entitled „The lack of recognition of the community's legal rights to forests”.

L499-503 – if the law has been favourable since 2018, why has the status of the sand forests under study not changed so far?

L564-565 – „community rights TO effective forest management”

L574-576 – „Meanwhile, the study also shows that the roles of stakeholders such as FPU and CPC are not engaged in the sand forest management process, while the roles of village councils and clan heads are also gradually overlooked”. – Is this about how people feel about it (Table 4)? If so, this needs to be added. And one more thing: in Table 4 the CPC role is mostly considered important, unlike what is written in L574-576. Is this not a mistake?

 

Conclusions

Many sentences in Conclusions are directly pasted from the Results chapter, this is not how it should be in a scientific article in a respected journal....

L621-628 – as there are repetitions in the following two sentences, I propose deleting the text: „the role of traditional factors has faded, instead is the role of state government at the local level. With these changes,”

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Thank you very much

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

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

Suggest rewrite 1^st paragraph as the “Tragedy of the Commons” is a different concept to community forest management. Perhaps an explanation for the comparison is warranted.

 

I consider some understanding of the Law on Forest Protection and Development (amended 2004) is warranted. I realise this is not a legal paper, but where the forest is not allocated to the people of the subject region under law, the absence of a legal motivation may require some clarification. This is further justified by the commentary in 2.2.5 Data Analysis Method, where reference is made to changes in forest management and rights took place in Thuan Thien Hue province due to implementation of this law prior to 2005. The implication is that the law may have influenced perceptions on forest management. Clearly regulation does have an important role but the relative positioning of this to local convention needs explanation more than is given here.

 

The discussion in 3.1.2 includes this sentence, ‘Regulations on the sand forest management have been integrated into the village conventions.’ I think this is an important issue that requires further elaboration. Once again I acknowledged this is not a legally based paper, but I think clarification of what this integration means is necessary. In particular, what regulations are relevant here and what is meant by conventions, and an example of both a convention  and the integration. It is important to clarify this as the paper is dealing with the relative success of community forest management model. So the relative positioning of regulations to conventions is necessary, even if it is to clarify they have little input if that be the case. However, it appears regulations do have input  as evidenced by the last sentence in 3.1.2. This is further evidenced by the reference to the Forest Protection Unit and the important role of government policy over natural resources. In my opinion all of this need to be clarified to understand this relative positioning in respect to forest management of sand forests between government regulation and local conventions.

The village management board is not positioned in figure 3.

The first paragraph in 3.3 needs clarification and rewording. In particular, the meaning of the second sentence is unclear.

I think the transition from sand forest management by the village council to the People’s Committee requires more contextual background. This is especially the case whereby at one stage it refers to a 'transition' but later talks of co-management by both. How the transition impacts the role of conventions by local people in forest management needs clarification. Somewhat confusingly the discussion refers to the People’s Committee having an important role in developing and facilitating ‘village regulations.’ Does this mean something different to conventions? This is unclear and should be clarified. This leads on to an important point that also requires clarification. It relates to compliance and who is responsible for it and how is compliance enforced. It is necessary to discuss compliance here in more detail, especially where there is a dichotomy between conventions and regulations and the role of the village council and Peoples Committee.

 

Overall the relative positioning of convention and regulation is unclear. I think this ambiguity is apparent in the discussion in 4.1. Whilst the government clearly has overall control, are devolved rights still extant? This is not altogether clear here. The discussion in 4.2 does help but could still be clarified further.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your comment to our manuscript. 

Please see our revised manuscript based on your comment in the attached file.

All best wishes for you.

Hoang Huy Tuan

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

The article describes the importance and management of sand forests in Vietnam by local communities. The most serious objection to this article is that it relies on currently obtained opinions of people, which were formulated with reference to the situation before 2005. This is such a distant time that it is difficult to imagine that the results obtained fully and impartially relate to that period. The passage of time blurs impressions and modifies opinions about the past.

The article is not formatted according to the requirements of the journal (fonts, citation, shape of tables, etc.). In addition, the lines of the text are not numbered, which makes it very difficult to provide comments on the text. Even the page numbering is missing. Please find below detailed comments on the text (P – page, par. – paragraph).

 

Title

The title does not fully reflect the scope of the work, as it also refers to the importance (role) of forests for local communities.

 

Abstract

I do not quite understand the terms "village conventions", then "management convention". Convention as an agreement, or convention as an assembly of persons, or convention as an established technique, practice? Nomenclature should be standardised and defined in detail in the Introduction.

 

Introduction

The introduction contains too little information about the title "Role of Local Institution for Forest Governance" - just stating that e.g. in India or the Philippines community forest management is carried out is not enough to show the background of the study. This should have been briefly characterised so that the discussion could relate the case study to the general situation in the region/world.

P1 (2. par. from the bottom) – throughout history forests have also been destroyed by people/communities – see  e.g. Ledig, F.T. Human Impacts on Genetic Diversity in Forest Ecosystems. Oikos 1992, 63, 87–108; Roberts, N.; Fyfe, R.M.; Woodbridge, J.; Gaillard, M.-J.; Davis, B.A.S.; Kaplan, J.O.; Marquer, L.; Mazier, F.; Nielsen, A.B.; Sugita, S.; et al. Europe’s lost forests: A pollen-based synthesis for the last 11,000 years. Sci. Rep. 2018, 8.; Alix-Garcia, J.; Munteanu, C.; Zhao, N.; Potapov, P.V.; Prishchepov, A.V.; Radeloff, V.C.; Krylov, A.; Bragina, E. Drivers of forest cover change in Eastern Europe and European Russia, 1985–2012. Land Use Policy 2016, 59, 284–297.; Kaplan, J.O.; Krumhardt, K.M.; Zimmermann, N. The prehistoric and preindustrial deforestation of Europe. Quat. Sci. Rev. 2009, 28, 3016–3034.     The information in the description of the study site could also be interpreted in a similar way, as originally there were more sand forests, but due to human activities (local communities?) only 460 ha remained. It would also be necessary to explain in the text why their area decreased, as this may be important for the discussion of the results (it should be commented there).

P2 (par. 3) – it would have been preferable to focus more on detailing the purpose of the work and its value to the international reader, while moving much of the characterisation of sand forests to the subchapter "Study site"

 

Material and methods

There is no indication in the description of when exactly the different stages of the research were carried out.

P2 – there should be a reference to Figure 1 in the text; "divided" rather than "devided"; 2nd line from the bottom - "In which" should be a continuation of the previous sentence rather than a new sentence

P3 (above Figure 1) - what is meant by 'natural area'?

Figure 1 – please enlarge the images as they are not very legible. Is it possible to mark the range of occurrence of sand forests on the third picture?

P3 (under Figure 1) - please check the correctness of species names, e.g. there is Quecus, while it should be Quercus. You should also be consistent in giving (or not giving) the authors of the name (L. etc.) - as required by the journal

P4 (chapter 2.2.2) – the list of questions asked is missing. How were the answers recorded (recording, transcript...)?

P4 (chapter 2.2.3) - clarification to the formula: N - rather the overall quantity of households in the selected commune; e=0.1, otherwise the result given in Table 1 will not come out. The list of questions asked is missing. How many answers could be selected when giving the past and present role of forests?

P4 (chapter 2.2.4) – what were the questions asked? how many people were specifically asked questions? how did this stage differ from stage 2.2.2?

P5 (chapter 2.2.5) – When answering questions NOW about the period before and after 2005 (i.e. the cut-off date 16 years ago!), are people able to answer the questions reliably and distinguish between their impressions? After all, it is hard to remember what one thought many years (more than 16) earlier... In this chapter, it would be useful to refer more precisely to the elements of the methodology mentioned earlier (the methods used, which are listed in the titles of the subchapters)

 

Results

P5 (chapter 3.1.1) – what should be understood as "traditional role"? Role lasting from the ancient past to the present day or rather a more historical significance? What is the difference between this chapter and chapter 3.2? Why do some of the roles mentioned in chapter 3.1.1 not coincide with the roles mentioned in chapter 3.2 and vice versa? In my opinion, these two chapters should be merged because they are about the same thing. Please explain the relationship between forest and lakes in more detail, as it seems that lakes and their importance are a different topic/type of environment and it is not clear to combine them with sand forests. If this site is only planned to be organised as a burial place, on what basis was its significance assessed for the period before and after 2005? Unless this is not very cleverly worded, as I see in further text that burials have already taken place in this woodland.

P6 (chapter 3.1.2, first par.) – this explanation should be moved and developed in the Introduction. "Existed" or "exist"? Because I understand that they are still encountered, since they are described in this article?

P6 (par. 3) – it is not clear whether the list of forest use rules is up to date, concerns the present or the entire history of these forests? if the latter, there is no demonstration of changes in the way forests are managed in 2005 - what was it like before and what was it like after 2005? Is the forest sand, which belongs to the community, located only in the administrative boundaries of the village or also outside the town boundaries? This would need to be clarified in the description of the study site. "(1) Local people are not allowed to illegally cut trees or dig roots in the sand forest located in the administrative boundaries of the village" - and are they allowed to do this legally? because this is unclear and does not interact with point (4).

P7 (chapter 3.2, first par.) – „before country unified” – it means when? "So nowadays" - and since when? Since the beginning of the nationalisation of forests (as indicated by the previous sentence) or since 2005 (as indicated by the table)? "In the past, there were many species of small trees in the sand forests such as..." - or are these species now gone because they have been overexploited? Vegetable and fish are not products from forest. Moreover, this text has little coherence or harmony, it is an artificial combination of various facts that appear without any connection with the previous one.

P7 – Table 2 – why are p ranges given for a column which is calculated in a simple mathematical way: difference = (value after 2005 – value before 2005)/value before 2005*100? moreover p value is given in the last column

P8 (1. par.) – the second „p” is different from the one in the Table 2

P8 – Table 3 – There is no explanation (in the Methodology) as to why these periods were taken into account and not others. Why is the year 2005, previously mentioned, not used? In what years was the war mentioned in the Table?

P8/9 (text between Table 3 and Table 4) - the timeframe in which each solution worked is missing.

P9 (last par.) – please explain here or in the methodology what the groups of people are, what is meant by the division into villagers, inside commune and outside commune

 

Discussion

It is worth supplementing the discussion with elements to which I have already drawn attention

Chapter 4.1 - isn't the challenge also to restore the natural value of these forests (species diversity, structural diversity, etc.)? Shouldn't there also be some action to adapt these forests to climate change?

Chapter 4.2 – In the context of the facts presented in the literature, do the authors have any proposal for the communities concerned?

Chapter 4.3 - no explanation for the abbreviation CFM. No source of information in 2nd par. on P12. What are the authors' suggestions in this regard?

It seems that 4.2 and 4.3 are artificially separated, there is similar content/issues running through both chapters, so I suggest merging this

 

Conclusions

Last sentence – these indications were not clearly and directly presented in the discussion of the results, this should be completed.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your comment to our manuscript. 

Please see our revised manuscript based on your comment in the attached file.

All best wishes for you.

Hoang Huy Tuan

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

A good contribution to the literature.  I recommend publication subject to the following.

The article explains the forest has not been allocated to communities for regulation under the law because of forest status type. At line 344 - 349 states the local CPC has a role on state managerial responsibility. From this and other comments there appears to be three things going on here at least which creates a level of confusion. First, the forests have not been handed to the community for regulation under the Forest Law. Second, forests remain under local convention control. Third, the CPC and  FPC seem to have some level of control to address state managerial control. Yet a finding appears to be that overall improvement in forest protection appears to arise from local control. Then in the last paragraph of the conclusion you refer to improvements from shifting local conventions to forest management regulation. This appears a bit contradictory or else it is something that is lost in translation. Therefore, can we please gain clarity over the following:

1. Is the failure to have the forest handed across to the local community for regulation under the Forest Law an impediment to good forest management?
2. Can local conventions work with government regulation to improve the overall level of control and improve sustainable forest outcomes? You make reference to 'institutionalize the village conventions' in line 423. Is that what you mean by working with government regulation?
3. How does the conclusion at the end where you make three recommendations improve forest management be achieved? Is it through a combination of (a) greater state control, (b) state control with local conventions and local management working together, or (c) state control, with CPC and FPC with local control/conventions.  The foregoing could relatively easily be explained and this would help the overall impact of the article. In short, I think the final paragraph with recommendations could be better explained in the body of the work, as to how they can be achieved.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article has been partially corrected. However, as a whole it is inconsistent and not very consonant with the title. In addition, the authors' explanation (in response to my review) of the respondents' recall of details from before 2005 is not entirely reliable: in one place it is asserted that they remember, in another place it is stated: "Actually, local people cannot remember exactly the time of changing rules".

I provide detailed comments on the text below.

 

Title

It can be simplified: Role of Village Convention in Forest Management: A Case Study on Sand Forest in Coastal North Central Vietnam. However, still the content of the article only partly relates to the title. I suggest focusing only on what the title of the article relates to, or linking existing content better to that title. In fact, two themes are intertwined - the role of sand forests in people's lives and sand forest management. It is possible to prepare two different articles or, by improving the title, to show the relationship between these two issues (this would be the most complete solution). In the current version there is no consistency between the title and the content of the article.

 

Abstract

L16 - I am doubtful whether it is the role of sand forests that changes the village convention, or vice versa? This would be indicated by the sentence in L20-22 and the title of the article. In fact the second sentence can be removed as the third sentence refers to the same thing. The information in the abstract is not fully related to the title of the article. For example "the present study recommends some solutions to improve efficiency of the sand forest management" should directly refer to village conventions

L19 - after "province" the name of the country should be added

 

Introduction

L69 - does the village convention really serve only to protect forest, conserving trees?

L82 - after this paragraph, it would be useful to describe in detail what the mechanism of creating a village convention is - who does it, who participates, under what rules, how it is updated, etc. Has this changed over the centuries? Since this is the title issue, it should be described in the introduction.

L86 - similar to the Abstract, I wonder about the impact of the role of forests on village convention - is it not rather the priorities and solutions adopted in village convention that shape the role of forests? This is unclear and needs to be clarified, especially in this paragraph on the creation of the village convention (as I wrote about above)

Objectives of studies – the focus should be on the title role of village convention in forest management. It seems that the old objectives have also been left out, which do not quite fit in with the current title of the article. They should either be dropped or very clearly and unambiguously linked to the title of the article (village conventions). "Changes of the village convention roles" - perhaps rather changes of the village convention scopes or issues?

 

Material and methods

The scope of the research should match the title of the article - please revise this, drop what is not very relevant to the topic, or much better justify the inclusion of the described elements of the methodology in the topic under study.

L145 - why are these reasons not mentioned? this seems to be very important from the point of view of management of these forests. It could also be relevant to the discussion of the results (there it should be commented)

2.2.2-2.2.4 Despite the authors' statements in their response to my review, these chapters still do not state when this research was conducted. The year and month should be given.

L183 - after 10% it is worth adding: in the above formula: e=0,1

L195 - there is still no information on how many answers (options) from the list the respondents could choose when defining the role of forests in the past and nowadays?

2.2.3 - it follows from section 2.2.5 that in the household interviews a question about the role of stakeholders in governing the sand forest was also asked using a Likert scale - this information should be supplemented here

 

Results

Include only those results that directly correspond to the current version of the article title (village conventions) or modify the title so that it better fits the content presented.

L267 - "This had decreased the density of those species" - this is evidence that communities do not always manage forests rationally, although it was mentioned earlier that they rather do (as well as a significant decrease in the area of sand forests in the region)... Further confirmation is in L416-417.

Subchapter 3.2 - the first paragraph should be moved and expanded in the Introduction

L299 - in the ACTUAL sand forest management

L362-367 - still not clear description of who is in conflict with whom. Does "inside commune" mean people living outside the city but still within the commune (I understand that a commune is a larger area where there may be several cities?)? Because this division would make sense if "Inside commune" was a different group of people from villagers. Please elaborate on this.

 

Discussion

I remind you that the discussion should refer to the title of the article, in the meantime it is hardly visible.

 

Conclusions

Conclusions should also be closely related to the title of the article.

L490 - rather "contrast" than "contract"