Affirmative Policy in Nepal’s Community Forestry: Does it Make a Difference in Terms of Social Sustainability?
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
First, I would like to congratulate the authors for the selected theme, which brings together a vast path of application of feminist theories in less common areas of investigation.
The article is well structured and the methodology used (questionnaires and qualitative approach) are justified.
What can be improved: a more broader use of feminist theories and feminist studies/gender related , even if applied to other scientific areas.
An introdutory explanation about the longitudinal study.
Author Response
First, I would like to congratulate the authors for the selected theme, which brings together a vast path of application of feminist theories in less common areas of investigation.
Thank you for the appreciation and for the work of review.
The article is well structured and the methodology used (questionnaires and qualitative approach) are justified.
Good.
What can be improved: a more broader use of feminist theories and feminist studies/gender related , even if applied to other scientific areas.
In chapter 3.1 we added a clarification of possible conceptual frameworks, explaining why we have chosen the Feminist political ecology one.
An introdutory explanation about the longitudinal study.
An explanation of the research structure has been added in the introduction.
Reviewer 2 Report
Review on paper:
Affirmative Policy in Nepal’s Community Forestry: Does it make a Difference in Terms of Social Sustainability?
Congratulation for the authors for these interesting subject.
The paper still can be improve as below:
The entire document is hard to read since the research line is not clear.
The entire paper must be re-arranged…for example the Chapter 3 and 4 can be merge. Also, we have a chapter of Discussion and conclusion and a subchapter 6.4 of Conclusions.
The introduction is well prepared but after these chapter, the paper contain a lot of details and the scope and objective of paper is not clear. To be more attractive for the paper, is important to focus on relevant aspects of research. The paper is too long, must be more precisely.
Abstract: these must be clearer developed with some clear evidence/results from the study.
Method
Is not clear what questions was applied, the period and context.
Results
5.1 Study Sites- These should be presented in Method chapter (as sub-chapter) ….is not a result…or can be an Appendix with site description. In this way, the article will be more shortly.
This chapter must be more clearly presented…in this form is not clear what was the questions from interview/questionnaire and what was the results.
Also, I note on the pdf version some remarks.
Thank you!
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Congratulation for the authors for these interesting subject.
Thank you for your appreciation and the time to make the review.
The entire document is hard to read since the research line is not clear.
A few lines have been added in the introduction chapter to explain the research line and the structure of the article.
The entire paper must be re-arranged…for example the Chapter 3 and 4 can be merge. Also, we have a chapter of Discussion and conclusion and a subchapter 6.4 of Conclusions.
Based on the suggestions we have merged the conceptual-analytical framework in the methodological remarks.
The introduction is well prepared but after these chapter, the paper contain a lot of details and the scope and objective of paper is not clear. To be more attractive for the paper, is important to focus on relevant aspects of research. The paper is too long, must be more precisely.
The focus and the objective of the research is on the effects of affirmative actions in terms of giving the possibility to critical actors to perform critical acts, contesting cultural patriarchal norms in favor of women expression in the FUGs. A few lines have been added in the introduction to clarify this theme.
The article is long because it is the only article to be published with this series of data. Many are the aspects and the nuances to be analyzed, emerging from the collected data.
Abstract: these must be clearer developed with some clear evidence/results from the study.
The abstract has been improved with results.
Is not clear what questions was applied, the period and context.
The context is now explained in the Method chapter, having moved the description of the study site to this chapter. The period is clearly reported and for each type of tool used in the data collection I reported a brief description of the objective that operation had.
5.1 Study Sites- These should be presented in Method chapter (as sub-chapter) ….is not a result…or can be an Appendix with site description. In this way, the article will be more shortly.
Correct, the study site chapter was moved to the Methods chapter, with a clearer introduction.
This chapter must be more clearly presented…in this form is not clear what was the questions from interview/questionnaire and what was the results.
Objectives and short description of each research method have been added in the methodology. A clearer description of methodology has been added.
Reviewer 3 Report
From the perspective of someone representing a different culture (European; or "the Global North"), this article is very interesting. However, the survey conducted is very sparsely described, it is not clear what the respondents of the questionnaires and interviews were asked about, so it is difficult to comment on the completeness and quality of the results obtained. In addition, there are no references to the present day - the survey was conducted in 2014, i.e. 8 years ago - has anything changed since then? To what extent is this information still relevant? The problem is not the date of the survey itself, but the lack of reference to these subsequent 8 years and the present day. I provide additional specific comments below.
Affiliation
There is a lack of detailed information about the research unit at the University of Bolzano (which department, which faculty?).
Introduction
I propose to combine chapter 1 with chapter 2 as one Introduction with three subchapters. The first subchapter will cover the current first paragraph of the Introduction. The second subchapter will cover the current subchapter 2.1, and the third subchapter will cover the current subchapter 2.2 combined with the second paragraph of the current Introduction (eliminating any repetition). At the end of the last subchapter of the Introduction, include the purpose of the article.
The purpose of the article - please elaborate on it - why is it needed, how can it help, why should it interest the international reader?
The Nepalese Context
L114-116 – „What we will…” – this text does not fit in with the Introduction, it is rather the result or part of a discussion
The Conceptual-Analytical Framework
I propose to merge this chapter with the next one (Methodological Remarks) and create one large on Materials and Methods, with further subsections as at present. There would need to be a stronger link between the current section 3.1 and this particular article (as was done at the end of section 3.2.) - how was FPE taken into account in the study conducted?
Methodological Remarks
There are too few details here, this chapter should be significantly expanded. In fact, we do not know what exactly was surveyed...
"80 semi-structured interviews with women and men who were or had been members of the FUGs and their committees" - what proportion of all the people in the FUGs was this, how were they selected (why these and not others), what questions were asked?
"8 group interviews with women who were characterized as poor or wealthy (two in each FUG)" - how many women were in each group, what were they asked?
"73 individually filled-in questionnaires" - which questionnaires (with which questions)? who answered them? is this somehow related to the further text in L250-251: "individual interviews with respondents from all wealth groups"? Because it is not clear, it is not specified.
"observation during 5 committee meetings" - what was observed?
"Data were collected from January to May 2014." - the survey was conducted quite a long time ago - how relevant is it still today? It seems that the authors make too little reference in the text to possible changes that have occurred since then.
Results
In the current Results there are also elements of Discussion, so the division of the text into Results and then Discussion is rather artificial and does not reflect the actual content, especially as there are few citations in Discussion.
There should be a stronger indication in the Results of what is the effect of semi-structured interviews, what is the effect of group interviews (it is difficult to see in the actual text information that would refer to rich and poor women), etc. There is a lack of any percentage references describing the results obtained from the surveys. The current impression is that the results are based on a few interviews and observation during committee meetings, but then what about the other sources of information (>150 interviews and questionnaires)?
The first subsection should be in the Methodology - at most, one can exclude information that is actually the result of research that serves the purpose of the article ("this paper explores what the introduction of quotas means for women's participation in community forestry decision-making"). There is a lack of citation of sources of information in this chapter.
L273-274 - "Two of the four selected FUGs had been established within the last eleven years, while two were established about twenty years ago (Table 1)" - this is not true. The current year is 2022, the last eleven years means the period since 2011. Meanwhile, all the FUGs are older. It appears that the article was written a number of years ago and has not been updated since. It is therefore difficult to determine the reliability of the remaining information
L287-290 – „the establishment of an exclusively female committee would strengthen the community’s claim on the (at that time quite degraded) forest as compared to claims made by already established neighbouring FUGs with mixed committees.” – please explain why?
L305 - "factions" or "fractions"?
L311-314 - doesn't the treasurer - like the secretary, also belong to a committee? then there would be two Dalit women....
L335 (and onwards) - I'm not a native speaker, but surely the term 'The Handclapping Approach' is correct and reflects the authors' intentions?
L453-454 - "The fifth female member, the secretary, participated actively and interactively in the meetings." - According to Table 1, in Situm Kasari there is a male secretary, not a female....
Discussion and Conclusions
The discussion should include more references to the literature.
L627-630 - this text is almost identical to the text in L454-458
I would suggest supplementing Conclusions with additional original results of the research conducted.
References
Insufficient description of reference No. 25, 27, 46.
Exactly the same notation for references 66 and 67, 8 and 130.
Many different references are in fact the same items (where there is a "see note"), e.g. No 34 and 73, 79 and 80. This should be sorted out: one source of information should have only one item in the References list, otherwise it is an artificial increase of the list.
Author Response
From the perspective of someone representing a different culture (European; or "the Global North"), this article is very interesting. However, the survey conducted is very sparsely described, it is not clear what the respondents of the questionnaires and interviews were asked about, so it is difficult to comment on the completeness and quality of the results obtained.
For each type of tool used in the data collection I added a brief description of the objective that tool had.
In addition, there are no references to the present day - the survey was conducted in 2014, i.e. 8 years ago - has anything changed since then? To what extent is this information still relevant? The problem is not the date of the survey itself, but the lack of reference to these subsequent 8 years and the present day. I provide additional specific comments below.
We have tried to present a thorough analysis of the most recent literature on the topic of community forestry, feminist political ecology and critical mass theory, accompanied by keystone literature on the topics. This has been done also in order to provide proofs of the actuality of the data collected with the present community forestry situation in Nepal. Recent publications have been used to prove that the situation emerged from the analysis of the data collected in 2014 is still present today. An example of this is the use of The State of Gender Equality and Climate Change in Nepal 2021 or the Wocan publication 2017, describing situations very similar to those found in 2014.
There is a lack of detailed information about the research unit at the University of Bolzano (which department, which faculty?).
Faculty of Education.
I propose to combine chapter 1 with chapter 2 as one Introduction with three subchapters. The first subchapter will cover the current first paragraph of the Introduction. The second subchapter will cover the current subchapter 2.1, and the third subchapter will cover the current subchapter 2.2 combined with the second paragraph of the current Introduction (eliminating any repetition). At the end of the last subchapter of the Introduction, include the purpose of the article.
Thank you for the suggestion, we have merged the two chapter.
The purpose of the article - please elaborate on it - why is it needed, how can it help, why should it interest the international reader?
We have elaborated the introduction in order to offer a more precise vision of the potential of this article for an international audience.
L114-116 – „What we will…” – this text does not fit in with the Introduction, it is rather the result or part of a discussion
It is a good suggestion, we have moved that sentence at the begin of the discussion to introduce it.
I propose to merge this chapter with the next one (Methodological Remarks) and create one large on Materials and Methods, with further subsections as at present. There would need to be a stronger link between the current section 3.1 and this particular article (as was done at the end of section 3.2.) - how was FPE taken into account in the study conducted?
This has been a suggestion of an other reviewer too, we welcome it gratefully.
There are too few details here, this chapter should be significantly expanded. In fact, we do not know what exactly was surveyed...
"80 semi-structured interviews with women and men who were or had been members of the FUGs and their committees" - what proportion of all the people in the FUGs was this, how were they selected (why these and not others), what questions were asked?
"8 group interviews with women who were characterized as poor or wealthy (two in each FUG)" - how many women were in each group, what were they asked?
"73 individually filled-in questionnaires" - which questionnaires (with which questions)? who answered them? is this somehow related to the further text in L250-251: "individual interviews with respondents from all wealth groups"? Because it is not clear, it is not specified.
"observation during 5 committee meetings" - what was observed?
"Data were collected from January to May 2014." - the survey was conducted quite a long time ago - how relevant is it still today? It seems that the authors make too little reference in the text to possible changes that have occurred since then.
Following this suggestion we have expanded the methodological part going more in deep in the methods objectives and subject characterization. Go too much into depth, we are afraid to make the article too long and difficult to read (as pointed by another reviewer).
In the current Results there are also elements of Discussion, so the division of the text into Results and then Discussion is rather artificial and does not reflect the actual content, especially as there are few citations in Discussion.
Results are intended to show an image of what emerged during the research, while discussion is expected to offer an analytical view from the perspective of the analytical framework. For this reason, it seems to us it make sense to let these two chapter separated.
There should be a stronger indication in the Results of what is the effect of semi-structured interviews, what is the effect of group interviews (it is difficult to see in the actual text information that would refer to rich and poor women), etc. There is a lack of any percentage references describing the results obtained from the surveys. The current impression is that the results are based on a few interviews and observation during committee meetings, but then what about the other sources of information (>150 interviews and questionnaires)?
This is a qualitative study, as clearly declared in the introduction. The questionnaire have been collected but not included in this publication directly, they have informed the researchers to offer a broader view, for this reason they are mentioned. If you consider more appropriate, we can delete them from the methodological part.
The first subsection should be in the Methodology - at most, one can exclude information that is actually the result of research that serves the purpose of the article ("this paper explores what the introduction of quotas means for women's participation in community forestry decision-making"). There is a lack of citation of sources of information in this chapter.
The sub-chapter Study sites has been moved to methodology as suggested. References have been added.
L273-274 - "Two of the four selected FUGs had been established within the last eleven years, while two were established about twenty years ago (Table 1)" - this is not true. The current year is 2022, the last eleven years means the period since 2011. Meanwhile, all the FUGs are older. It appears that the article was written a number of years ago and has not been updated since. It is therefore difficult to determine the reliability of the remaining information
The data have been collected in 2014, as declared. However it seems still very on the topic as emerges from the numerous studies we have cited. This mistake is an oversight.
L287-290 – „the establishment of an exclusively female committee would strengthen the community’s claim on the (at that time quite degraded) forest as compared to claims made by already established neighbouring FUGs with mixed committees.” – please explain why?
The reason is explained in the previous sentence: the DFO recommended a women-only executive committee. The reason for the DFO propensity for women-only EC is then explained in the chapter “The controversial role of the state”. I simply modify as follow to make the sentence clearer.
She received active support from her family and the District Forest Officer (DFO), and she gathered women to form an all-women committee because the DFO recommended it as the establishment of an exclusively female committee would strengthen the community’s claim on the (at that time quite degraded) forest as compared to claims made by already established neighbouring FUGs with mixed committees.
L305 - "factions" or "fractions"?
faction
L311-314 - doesn't the treasurer - like the secretary, also belong to a committee? then there would be two Dalit women....
That was a mistake. The woman treasurer was the only dalit member of the executive committee. We corrected it in the text.
Thank you for noticing it.
L335 (and onwards) - I'm not a native speaker, but surely the term 'The Handclapping Approach' is correct and reflects the authors' intentions?
“Handclapping approach” is the term that was used by people in the studied villages to describe the process that, in the formal documents, was instead called “general consensus”.
That process is actually based on an handclap that follows the proposal of the names by the male elite in the village. It shows an electoral process that does not allow (or very difficultly) the possibility of a denial of the names proposed by the male elite.
L453-454 - "The fifth female member, the secretary, participated actively and interactively in the meetings." - According to Table 1, in Situm Kasari there is a male secretary, not a female....
As above, the original documents have been revised. A mistake occurred in the translation and first use of data. The person we are referring to is the treasurer. The mistake has been corrected accordingly in the text.
The discussion should include more references to the literature.
References have been included in the text.
L627-630 - this text is almost identical to the text in L454-458
Yes, that’s true; the concept is the same and the words are similar. We are restating a concept to analyze it on the ground of the Critical Mass Theory.
I would suggest supplementing Conclusions with additional original results of the research conducted.
We summarized the results obtained at the beginning of the discussion and conclusion chapter.
Insufficient description of reference No. 25, 27, 46.
Corrected
Exactly the same notation for references 66 and 67, 8 and 130.
Corrected
Many different references are in fact the same items (where there is a "see note"), e.g. No 34 and 73, 79 and 80. This should be sorted out: one source of information should have only one item in the References list, otherwise it is an artificial increase of the list.
As the reference system is quite complicated, we ask to rework it on the final version.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
-congratulation for your work.
Author Response
Thank you.
Reviewer 3 Report
The article has been significantly improved, but there are still corrections to be made. I list them below.
Affiliation
The article still lacks detailed information about the research unit at the University of Bolzano (which department, which chair?).
Introduction (I propose to delete „and Context”)
Still, the order of contents in Introduction is not satisfactory, moreover, it does not make such "suspended" texts as it is currently at the beginning, without a specific subchapter. Immediately after 1. Introduction there should be 1.1. (title). I propose the following solution:
L30-45 - use skilfully in the Discussion, as a comment on the individual Results
Subchapter 1.1. - as it is at present
Subchapter 1.2. - as it currently exists + skilfully add to it the text from L47-54: "Mandatory gender..... social identities".
Subchapter 1.3. The purpose and the scope of the study. From actual L54 (Through a multiple case study approach this paper explores what the introduction of GENDER quotas means for…) to L80 (… climate change). In this text, somewhere at the beginning, please use the sentence from L81-82, weaving it into the existing text
L82-86 ("The study........ injustice") - this is the RESULT, can be used in the Discussion
Analytical Framework and Methodological Remarks
It would still be appropriate to add a sentence at the end on how specifically FPE was used in the study conducted. The added fragment can be left, but it does not meet the requirement of a close connection between the theory presented and the practice of the study carried out.
Methodology: still not all the necessary information is given.
"80 semi-structured interviews with women and men who were or had been members of the FUGs and their committees" - how were they selected (why these and not others)?
„8 group interviews with women who were characterized as poor or wealthy (two in each FUG), with the aim of capturing differences between women belonging to different well-being ranks” - This is quite obvious, but what specifically were they asked about? How many women were in each group (GROUP interviews)?
"73 individually filled-in questionnaires" - who answered them? is this somehow related to the further text in L250-251: "individual interviews with respondents from all wealth groups"? Because it is not clear, it was not specified.
"observation during 5 committee meetings" - what was observed?
You can leave this information about questionnaires, just please state first that for the purpose of this article only part of the data obtained was used for the qualitative analysis.
Results
Subchapter 3.1. – It is worth adding here the explanation for The Handclapping Approach given in response to the review
Discussion and Conclusions
L613-629 - no such suspended texts are made. I propose to include it in Subchapter 4.3
Author Response
The article still lacks detailed information about the research unit at the University of Bolzano (which department, which chair?)
Faculty of Education, post-doc researcher. We have added on the article file too.
Introduction (I propose to delete „and Context”)
Still, the order of contents in Introduction is not satisfactory, moreover, it does not make such "suspended" texts as it is currently at the beginning, without a specific subchapter. Immediately after 1. Introduction there should be 1.1. (title). I propose the following solution:
L30-45 - use skilfully in the Discussion, as a comment on the individual Results
Subchapter 1.1. - as it is at present
Subchapter 1.2. - as it currently exists + skilfully add to it the text from L47-54: "Mandatory gender..... social identities".
Subchapter 1.3. The purpose and the scope of the study. From actual L54 (Through a multiple case study approach this paper explores what the introduction of GENDER quotas means for…) to L80 (… climate change). In this text, somewhere at the beginning, please use the sentence from L81-82, weaving it into the existing text
L82-86 ("The study........ injustice") - this is the RESULT, can be used in the Discussion
We have added a subtitle to introduce the first part of introduction. In our opinion these paragraphs are important here to clarify the structure of the article, as required by an other reviewer.
Analytical Framework and Methodological Remarks
It would still be appropriate to add a sentence at the end on how specifically FPE was used in the study conducted. The added fragment can be left, but it does not meet the requirement of a close connection between the theory presented and the practice of the study carried out.
FPE has been adopted as analytical framework in the writing process, not during the research design and data collection. We have added a sentence to clarify this choice.
Methodology: still not all the necessary information is given.
"80 semi-structured interviews with women and men who were or had been members of the FUGs and their committees" - how were they selected (why these and not others)?
„8 group interviews with women who were characterized as poor or wealthy (two in each FUG), with the aim of capturing differences between women belonging to different well-being ranks” - This is quite obvious, but what specifically were they asked about? How many women were in each group (GROUP interviews)?
"73 individually filled-in questionnaires" - who answered them? is this somehow related to the further text in L250-251: "individual interviews with respondents from all wealth groups"? Because it is not clear, it was not specified.
"observation during 5 committee meetings" - what was observed?
You can leave this information about questionnaires, just please state first that for the purpose of this article only part of the data obtained was used for the qualitative analysis.
We have enriched the description of each tool following the questions provided by the reviewer.
Results
Subchapter 3.1. – It is worth adding here the explanation for The Handclapping Approach given in response to the review
We have included it as suggested, thank you.
Discussion and Conclusions
L613-629 - no such suspended texts are made. I propose to include it in Subchapter 4.3
We have added a subtitle to leave these paragraphs not suspended. The inclusion of this part of the text was requested by another reviewer and we actually consider important, given the length of the article, to summarize the results obtained before starting with their discussion.
