Mineral Deposits Safeguarding and Land Use Planning—The Importance of Creating Shared Value

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Linda Warell has dealt with an extremely important topic for the extractive industry, "mineral deposits safeguarding and land use planning" and included the aspect of "creating shared value". The structure of the article is well chosen and guides the reader in an optimal way. The comparison of international mines underlines the interest in this topic. The list of references is remarkable. It’s well known, the extractive industry can only mine where the deposit is located. To secure access to minerals is of utmost importance. However, the extractive industry has strong spatial impacts and the need of a comprehensive coordination or balance between the interests of the extractive industry and other (potentially affected) utilization claims is evident. This is done through the instruments of land use planning. Putting this issue additionally into the focus of the "shared value perspective" (combination of economic and social values) is an interesting point. I share the opinion that - if mining projects are carried out within the framework of a "shared value perspective", a social added value is achieved for all actors involved. It would certainly be interesting to discuss a comparison of such projects with those projects that do not consider this perspective.   In any case, it would make a lot of sense to include the so called Social Licence to operate in the approval process, which would be a further step in the right direction: to achieve a sustainable balance between the interests of the extractive industry and (those affected by it) other social interests.

Author Response

We thank you and the reviewers for the positive evaluation of the paper. All the constructive and critical remarks are highly appreciated, and the quality of the paper has improved significantly after revising accordingly. In response to the comments received, the following main changes in the paper have been made (see below for more detailed responses):

• The case studies have been presented more thoroughly, focusing on providing more information of the mining project in order to increase the understanding of its potential conflicting issues. A map has been added to provide an overview of the geographic location of the cases, which also adds to the understanding.
• The section with discussion and concluding remarks have been separated to more clearly indicate the contribution of the paper. Also, a number of new references have been added in the introduction, and some of these have also been reflected upon in the discussion.

I hope that the comments have been adequately addressed and that you will now consider the paper as publishable. Thanks, again, for your consideration and I look forward to hearing from you.

Response to Reviewer 1

Thank you for reading the paper and also your kind comments. I agree that it would be interesting to compare ‘good practice’ cases with those that have not been as successful. It is likely that a shared value perspective could have helped in the implementation of such projects. This point has been elaborated somewhat on in the conclusion.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper presents different mining legislations of Nordic countries, and the perspective of Porter and Kramer’s notion to create a shared value policy for Sweden, Norway and Finland.

Author, describes and compares the challenges of mining with nature conservation policies for three mentioned countries. Moreover, there is a description about the regional and national legislations in each country (Sweden, Norway and Finland). The paper presents an interesting topic for the interaction of mining safeguarding and land use planning, and gives reader information about raw materials policies in Nordic European countries. I just suggest the author for an English review. Some parts of the paper presented in the attached file are difficult to follow and need re-writing.

Please find in attachment my comments. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We thank you and the reviewers for the positive evaluation of the paper. All the constructive and critical remarks are highly appreciated, and the quality of the paper has improved significantly after revising accordingly. In response to the comments received, the following main changes in the paper have been made (see below for more detailed responses):

• The case studies have been presented more thoroughly, focusing on providing more information of the mining project in order to increase the understanding of its potential conflicting issues. A map has been added to provide an overview of the geographic location of the cases, which also adds to the understanding.
• The section with discussion and concluding remarks have been separated to more clearly indicate the contribution of the paper. Also, a number of new references have been added in the introduction, and some of these have also been reflected upon in the discussion.

I hope that the comments have been adequately addressed and that you will now consider the paper as publishable. Thanks, again, for your consideration and I look forward to hearing from you.

Response to Reviewer 2

Thank you for reading the paper and providing valuable suggestions for improving the quality of the paper. Below responses to your points can be found:

• Please read and review the whole abstract.

Thank you for this comment, and I agree that the abstract needed to be re-written. This have been done and hopefully the abstract is a better reflection of the paper in its new form.

• For the presented case studies, I suggest the author to add at least a map with their location.

Thank you for this valuable point. A map that provides an overview of the location of the included case studies have been added to the section where the case studies are presented. Furthermore, the information about the case studies have been extended regarding type of mineral, method of mining, scale of exploitation, which also adds to the understanding of the cases.

• Please read again the whole paper and ask a native English speaker to check the paper.

Thank you for this comment. I agree that there were a number of places where the English were not presented adequately. A native English speaker have read the paper and corrections have been made.

• Minor reviews

Thank you for pointing out these minor issues in the paper. I have addressed all of the issues which have improved the English language, and also the understanding of the paper.

Reviewer 3 Report

Submitted manuscript presents some Scandinavian experiences related to the mineral deposits safeguarding and land use planning. The  methodological approach to investigate the link between them, by using a shared value perspective  is interesting and could also be applied in other regions. Presented case studies concern areas with specific natural and planning conditions compared to other European countries (low popolation and urbanization, lack of highly commercial agriculture, but they are territory of activities and culture of indigenous people of Lapland and have usually high natural values). Such presentation could lead to interesting conclusions and identify several leading elements necessary for succes. They were more or less shown in the course of research conducted within the Minland and other projects. In order to improve the rank of the manuscript some modifications are suggested in the file.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We thank you and the reviewers for the positive evaluation of the paper. All the constructive and critical remarks are highly appreciated, and the quality of the paper has improved significantly after revising accordingly. In response to the comments received, the following main changes in the paper have been made (see below for more detailed responses):

• The case studies have been presented more thoroughly, focusing on providing more information of the mining project in order to increase the understanding of its potential conflicting issues. A map has been added to provide an overview of the geographic location of the cases, which also adds to the understanding.
• The section with discussion and concluding remarks have been separated to more clearly indicate the contribution of the paper. Also, a number of new references have been added in the introduction, and some of these have also been reflected upon in the discussion.

I hope that the comments have been adequately addressed and that you will now consider the paper as publishable. Thanks, again, for your consideration and I look forward to hearing from you.

Response to Reviewer 3

Thank you for reading the paper and providing valuable suggestions for improving the quality of the paper. Below responses to your points can be found:

• In the introduction – a wider literature review is required. The specific research questions – the shared value concept should also be short but more clearly indicated.

Thank you for these comments. I agree that the introduction benefits from references to more recent literature that relates to the issues discussed. A number of additional references have therefore been added. Regarding the specific research questions and the shared value concept this has been elaborated on more clearly, hopefully, before the aim of the paper is presented.

• Chapter 2 distorts the general scheme of the article and should be included in the Results.

Thank you for this comment, and I understand the point that this section in its current position to some extent violates the guidelines of the Resources journal. However, to include this section, which I mainly regard as a background to understand the legal context of the presented case studies, in the results section does not either feel satisfactory. If it is ok with the editors of the journal I prefer to keep this section after the introduction. However, I have added a paragraph in the introduction that presents the disposition of the paper, which hopefully clarifies the current structure.

• Results: By a detailed description in case studies, there is often no indication of: the type of mineral, mining methods and scale of exploitation. These are important data that affects possible conflicts and ways of creating shared value.

Thank you for this valuable comment, which I agree are important for possible conflicts and ways of creating shared value. Information regarding the case studies have been added according to what is suggested above. A map of the location of the case studies has also been included in order to better understand the location of the cases.

• Discussion: There is a lack of a broader reference to the methods of solving the discussed problems in other European countries and to cite more important publications in this regard.

Thank you for this comment. A number of studies that presents methods of solving these problems in other European countries’ have been added to the introduction. A number of these are also now reflected upon in the discussion section.

• I suggest to try to separate the Discussion from the Conclusions.

Thank you for this suggestion. I agree that this will improve the general understanding of the paper and I have therefore separated these in the new version of the paper.

• References should be enriched.

A number of new references have been added in the new version of the paper. Please, let me know if there are additional references that should be added to the paper.

• Detailed issues

Thank you for providing these issues. All of the suggestions have been addressed in the new version of the paper.