Is It Possible for Poland to Achieve the Policy Goal of 33% Forest Cover by Mid-Century?
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
This is an interesting article considering forestland cover and afforestation in Poland. The article needs to be shortened in order to make it more appealing and clearer to the readers. Detailed comments are given below:
Line 17: remove “in nature”
Line 21: remove “and plant trees”
Line 56: remove “taking” “a healthy environment is”
Line 71: would the term “state” be better in “Polish forests are public”?
Lines 142-153: please give information on the area size that each authority covers
Results: as one of the goals of your paper you are mentioning years 1991 (1995) to 2020, but you give extensive information on the period after 1945. This should be shortened and moved to the Introduction section and that would indeed be a proper introduction to the state and perspective of forests in Poland (Lines 178-203 and 268-280)
Lines 368-418: this part should be shortened as most of the text information is visible in figure 4 addressed by this text.
Discussion should be shorter, four pages of text are too much. By having 22 pages in the article, because of too much text, you lost the opportunity to highlight the most essential information. And this information is indeed essential.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your thorough and sympathetic review of our manuscript "Is it possible for Poland to achieve the policy goal of 33% forest cover by mid-century?”. We highly appreciate your valuable comments and suggestions on how to improve our paper to make it more suitable for publication in "Sustainability”.
Following your advice, we have considered all the points mentioned in the your review report. All the points have been described in detail below. We believe that our manuscript is now much more suitable for publication in "Sustainability".
Reviewer’s comment: The article needs to be shortened in order to make it more appealing and clearer to the readers.
As suggested, the article has been shortened. We believe that the changes introduced make it more accessible and clearer for readers.
Reviewer’s comment: Line 17: remove “in nature”
The fragment in question has been removed.
Reviewer’s comment: Line 21: remove “and plant trees”
The fragment in question has been removed.
Reviewer’s comment: Line 56: remove “taking” “a healthy environment is”
The words "a healthy environment is" have been removed." We think it makes more sense not to remove the word "taking" (One of the measures the EU is taking to achieve climate neutrality...).
Reviewer’s comment: Line 71: would the term “state” be better in “Polish forests are public”?
We have changed the word and also made some appropriate changes in the following two sentences.
Reviewer’s comment: Lines 142-153: please give information on the area size that each authority covers
We specified that “Each administrative structure (district authorities, State Forest districts, and ARiMR district offices) covers the entire territory of the country. The questionnaire was sent to all units (offices) in each group of institutional actors, i.e. for a total of 1,124 units in the country”.
Reviewer’s comment: Results: as one of the goals of your paper you are mentioning years 1991 (1995) to 2020, but you give extensive information on the period after 1945. This should be shortened and moved to the Introduction section and that would indeed be a proper introduction to the state and perspective of forests in Poland (Lines 178-203 and 268-280).
We have removed the detailed description of the period 1945-1991, thus shortening the text. Some general information has been moved to the Introduction section (7th paragraph). We have also removed other references to this period (e.g., in the first paragraph of the Discussion section).
Reviewer’s comment: Lines 368-418: this part should be shortened as most of the text information is visible in figure 4 addressed by this text.
The description of the results in lines 368-418 has been changed to a concise summary of the results under Figure 4.
Reviewer’s comment: Discussion should be shorter, four pages of text are too much. By having 22 pages in the article, because of too much text, you lost the opportunity to highlight the most essential information. And this information is indeed essential.
We have shortened the discussion, taking care not to omit many important topics that are discussed, so as not to lose their meaning. We believe that the changes introduced make the manuscript more attractive and clear for the readers. The manuscript is now 18 pages long, including more than 3.5 pages of references.
Reviewer 2 Report
- Method of analyses have not been explained in detail in the methodology. For example, in first paragraph under material and method, the author(s) states that they use ‘official documents (policies, development programs, laws) and literature as well as other official statistical data, taken from the statistical yearbooks of forestry and agriculture’ However, how the method used for the analysis of such data have not been explained. There is need to clearly explain whether content analysis, policy analysis etc was used and how it was applied.
- Description of research design adopted is absent. There is need to provide justification for the sample size used and also specify the exact sampling technique used.
- There is need for policy recommendation
- The author (s) failed to clearly highlight the contribution of their work to the advancement of knowledge on the policy goal of achieving 33 % forest cover by mid-century in Poland.
- Lastly, based on the result discussed, the authors can recommend yearly the size of land that need to be forested to be able to meet the 33% targeted forest cover by mid-century.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your thorough and sympathetic review of our manuscript "Is it possible for Poland to achieve the policy goal of 33% forest cover by mid-century?”. We highly appreciate your valuable comments and suggestions on how to improve our paper to make it more suitable for publication in "Sustainability”.
In response to your advice, we have considered all of the items mentioned in your review report and provided explanations for the comments not addressed. All points have been described in detail below. We believe that our manuscript is now much more suitable for publication in "Sustainability".
Reviewer’s comment: 1. Method of analyses have not been explained in detail in the methodology. For example, in first paragraph under material and method, the author(s) states that they use ‘official documents (policies, development programs, laws) and literature as well as other official statistical data, taken from the statistical yearbooks of forestry and agriculture’. However, how the method used for the analysis of such data have not been explained. There is need to clearly explain whether content analysis, policy analysis etc was used and how it was applied.
At the suggestion of the other reviewer, we have significantly shortened the manuscript, removing, among other things, the fragments in which official documents and development programs (content analysis of these documents) from the period 1945-1990 are discussed. In the current form of the manuscript, we characterize only the goals and conditions of the National Program for Increasing Forest Cover and referred to as KPZL).
Reviewer’s comment: 2. Description of research design adopted is absent. There is need to provide justification for the sample size used and also specify the exact sampling technique used.
To clarify this question, we indicated that "Each administrative structure ( district authorities, State Forest districts, and ARiMR district offices) covers the entire territory of the country. The questionnaire was sent to all units (offices) in each group of institutional actors, i.e for a total of 1,124 units in the country." Thus, we did not draw a sample from the surveyed units, but the questionnaire was sent to all of them.
Reviewer’s comment: 3. There is need for policy recommendation.
The conclusions of our study have been reformulated to focus more on policy recommendations.
Reviewer’s comment: 4. The author (s) failed to clearly highlight the contribution of their work to the advancement of knowledge on the policy goal of achieving 33 % forest cover by mid-century in Poland.
In our study, we try to make it clear that it is not possible to achieve 33% of forest cover by mid-century by afforestation of new land alone. The goal can only be achieved if there is conversion of forested agricultural land to forest and if this is supported by a sets of systematic measures (a kind of program). We address this issue both in the Discussion section and in the Conclusions. However, most discussions in this field in Poland focus only on the need for further afforestation.
Reviewer’s comment: 5. Lastly, based on the result discussed, the authors can recommend yearly the size of land that need to be forested to be able to meet the 33% targeted forest cover by mid-century.
In the fifth paragraph at the end of the Discussion section, we added the information that after the official recognition of all forested agricultural land that meets the national criteria for recognition as forest, 160-260 thousand hectares of land should be afforested to achieve a forest cover of 33%, which would amount to about 6-10 thousand hectares per year from 2023. In the previous paragraph we mentioned that "achieving this goal only through afforestation is unrealistic, as it would mean annual afforestation on an area of almost 38 thousand hectares." We also refer to this point in the conclusions of our manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your thorough and sympathetic review of our manuscript "Is it possible for Poland to achieve the policy goal of 33% forest cover by mid-century?”. We highly appreciate your valuable comments and suggestions on how to improve our paper to make it more suitable for publication in "Sustainability”.
In response to your advice, we have considered all of the points mentioned in the your review report and provided explanations for the suggestions not addressed. All details have been described in detail below. We believe that our manuscript is now much more suitable for publication in "Sustainability".
Reviewer’s comment: It would be useful to know the original cover of forests and other native ecosystems (such as grasslands and others). Also, a little ecological description of the native temperate forests (structure, diversity, biomass production, disturbances) and of these other native ecosystems, in the case there were.
At your suggestion, we have included the general information on agricultural land, including permanent pastures and meadows and fallow land, in the Introduction section (5th paragraph). In the next paragraph, we have added the information on coniferous and deciduous forests in Poland. However, we must note that the other reviewer suggested shortening the manuscript, so we decided not to elaborate on the topic of ecological description of forests in Poland.
Reviewer’s comment: In addition, a little bit of this ecological information about the afforestation and reforestation programs. Is there any restoration program for grasslands or other non forest native ecosystems?
For the above reason, we have decided not to add further ecological information about the afforestation programme and program for grasslands or other non-forest native ecosystems. These topics do not appear to be directly related to the objective of our work.
Reviewer’s comment: In Figure 4 point 7, by.... Please correct.
Figure 4 has been corrected.
Reviewer’s comment: Lines 476: your Results are not related to forest quality. Do you have data on this?
The fragment in question has been removed due to the shortening of the manuscript.
Reviewer’s comment: I would also add a little bit of a socioeconomic background of Poland in Methods and how restoration efforts could help poor communities in the Discussion.
We think that a description of the socioeconomic background of Poland would go beyond the aim of our study. However, the characteristics of changes in rural areas after 1990 and especially after accession to the EU in 2004 suggest that the EU Common Agricultural Policy has a positive impact on the development of rural areas in Poland. Nevertheless, agricultural policy seems to be in contrast with forest policy in terms of afforestation. However, we do not have studies and results on the influence of the afforestation programme on the welfare of rural communities.
Reviewer’s comment: Also, regarding other non forest native ecosystems, what about restoration efforts? Forests should be where they were originally and so on with grasslands and such.
Unfortunately, this topic does not seem to be related to the aim of our work. In our study, we focused only on the afforestation of agricultural land.
Reviewer’s comment: Conclusions are very broad. Please focus on your findings.
The conclusions have been rewarded to refer to the results obtained.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
thank you for considering given comments. Good luck with your future research and publishing.
Sincerely,
Reviewer
