Land use and social-ecological legacies of Rio de Janeiro's Atlantic urban forests: from charcoal production to novel ecosystems

Historical ecology is an important tool in deciphering human–environment interactions imprinted on landscapes throughout time. However, gaps of knowledge still remain regarding the land use legacies hidden in the current Atlantic Forest landscape; and also regarding how this information can help management of the remaining forest cover. The social-ecological systems framework was applied to understand charcoal production in the urban forests of Rio de Janeiro, from the nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, and their current social-ecological legacies. Charcoal production carried out by former enslaved populations, allowed for rapid forest regeneration. Forest thinning instead of forest felling was carried out by small groups in these urban remnant forests, sparing large native trees and facilitating natural regeneration. Currently, more than one thousand former charcoal production sites are accounted for hidden underneath the forest cover. The forest landscape of today is a result of novel forest successional trajectories that recovered structural and functional attributes of the forest ecosystem. However, this came at the cost of social invisibility and marginalization of these populations. The management practices of charcoal production dispersed in the landscape is one of Rio de Janeiro's most important, albeit hidden, land use legacies. Currently, the forested landscape is comprised of regenerated forests, both structurally and functionally sound, though with significant changes in species composition including the introduction of exotic species throughout recent centuries. These urban forests are today a complex mosaic of novel ecosystems, with rich biocultural diversity, and together with managed lands and well conserved forest tracts, provide not only livelihood and sustenance for forest dwelling families, but also important ecosystem services for the entire population of Rio de Janeiro. We believe that these concepts and frameworks can offer practical solutions for urban forest management, taking into account the biocultural diversity of Rio de Janeiro, increasing awareness of sustainability and promoting food security.


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I have two main comments: 1) Although very well-written, I found the paper unnecessarily long. The Introduction has 4 paragraphs explaining similarities and differences in the approaches of distinct disciplines, which I think is hardly necessary for the readers of this journal. 2) I have concerns with the optimism of the authors with the 'novel ecosystem' concept. They have soundly defined it and I tend to agree with their arguments. However, the literature is filled with criticism to the concept that I think they should at least acknowledge (e.g., Murcia et al (2014) Trends Ecol Evol). To support their arguments, the paper by Evers et al. (2018) Glob Ecol Conserv can be useful.
One very minor issue is that socioecological is written in three different ways along the text.
Reviewer: 2 Comments to the Author(s) My comments and suggestions are found in the attached file.

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Summary
This is a timely, interesting, and well-written paper based on a rich empirical material.
It looks at a marginalized and little-documented historical population (charcoal workers) and trace their influence in past and present social-ecological interactions in two large urban forest remnants (now protected areas) in Rio de Janeiro. While nature conservation policies have often departed from ideas of "pristine nature" separated from humans, the study highlights how previous smallscale charcoal production helped shape the now-protected areas into "novel and hybrid ecosystems" with recovered biomass and functionality (albeit less species diversity -distinct from original state). In doing this, the authors outline the scientific "detective work" to uncover historical livelihood practices through the marks they left on the landscape.
The paper, which makes a decade of research accessible to non-Portuguese speaking audiences, has the potential to feed into various scientific debates around conservation, human-nature relations, ecological practices of traditional/marginalized populations, and biocultural diversity in urban areas. The use of the Social-Ecological Systems framework seems suitable (although some concepts are not defined, see below). However, some more work could be done to make the paper live up to this potential, mainly regarding problem framing/novelty (Introduction) and presentation (Sections 3.5-3.6).
Below I first outline three major concerns, and then list more detailed/superficial comments in the order of appearance in the draft. The draft could also use a language check (I have highlighted some issues that caught my attention -small things that together affect the rating of the paper -but I might have missed others). If the authors could address the concerns cited, I would warmly recommend the publication of the paper.

Major comments
I have three overarching (and interlinked) concerns: 1) a more clearly articulated research question (& associated research gap) would better motivate how the paper contributes to advancing science, 2) some terms could be better defined/explained for an international/interdisciplinary audience and 3) I am not fully convinced by how the paper employs the term sustainability.

1) Novelty? Research gap and research question can be more clearly articulated
This is my biggest issue with the paper's presentation. Due to the focus and method (historical processes & mostly secondary data) it would be important to clarify what is the novel element: Which present-day gap/problem in scientific knowledge does it aim to address, and why is it important to (re)publish with an SES lens? (Part of the answer is found between the lines: The marginalized charcoal workers were little documented and bibliographic references of historical charcoal production in Latin America are still scarce, previous were published papers in Portuguese… but I suspect there is more.) The introduction starts by describing developments in different fields (SES, sustainability/social research, environmental history etc.), which are presented as "tools" for the research, however, it Appendix A does not clearly connect this to a lack or a gap in knowledge in any of the areas, to make way for a research question.
Also, only a very general aim is presented: "to analyse the landscape transformations that occurred in the urban forests of Rio de Janeiro in the last 200 years in order to comprehend current socialecological interactions and outcomes from this historical-ecological process". (What scientific or practical problem could "comprehending social-ecological interactions" help to solve?) I believe that formulating 1) a more specific (theoretical) research gap that the paper aims to fill, and consequently, 2) a more specific aim and research question, would help with both the aspect of novelty, and that of structure (i.e., with one or more specific questions formulated in the intro, it would be easier to understand how the results section is structured to answer the question(s).
There are plenty of interesting material in the result section, so the easiest way would perhaps be to work "backwards" from there and craft research question(s) at the end of intro that give credits to the findings. Possibly one methods-oriented question that valorizes the empirical "detective work" to get at these historical practices (current sections 3.1-3.4). And one regarding the application of the SES framework (3.5-3.6), e.g. something like: 1. What does (geographical analysis of) the landscape tell us about the historical/ecological (?) practices of the coal workers? 2. Some question that relates to their role in (transformation towards) the present-day novel ecosystem/social-ecological system (that requires the SES analysis and addresses a gap in research)?
Based on this, the aim could be made more specific, possibly mentioning sth like "Tracing the role of socially invisible charcoal workers" (The excellent paragraph on p. 10, row 18-25 might inspire the language for general framing of the paper.) From there, the authors could go another step backwards to identify the research gap that the questions fill (i.e., which literature/problem do they want to feed back into?). Some ideas:  The following two sentences could be developed into a paragraph with some more details and references: "Understanding how societies used natural resources in the past, producing landscapes imprinted with our history, has become a very important field of scientific inquiry in recent decades. Without having a good knowledge about how the landscape transformation process took place, one cannot make good management decisions regarding its current use, resource management and biodiversity conservation." (E.g., what is considered "good knowledge" or "good management", why do we have poor knowledge or management, what are practical or scientific gaps or hurdles (including recent references that say this is a gap) or what could this knowledge achieve on the ground for sustainability, land use, or marginalized populations…?), AND/OR:  Is there any problem/drama/disagreement regarding NOVEL ecosystems and conservation?, AND/OR:  Do the authors want to say that their approach drawing on Historical Ecology, Environmental History and Historical Geography to make a historically grounded SES analysis is the novelty, then they should perhaps write 2-3 sentences here to give a brief overview of other historical SES studies and what they did or didn't achieve. (E.g., while aspect x and y have been considerably studied, no one looked at aspect z.), AND/OR:

2) Terms and their definitions
Another (more easily addressed) issue with the manuscript is that the authors use some terms without explaining or defining them, including "resilience", "biomass resilience", "geographical tableau", "ecosystem services" (not sure if this one is considered self-explanatory these days), "macro vestiges", etc. Some of these might stem from the translation from Portuguese. To help the reader (and save them from having to google unfamiliar terms) and for the paper to reach its full potential of international and interdisciplinary spread, I would recommend defining (even if only with a few words) the technical terms necessary for the paper's argument and using simpler words for those that are not. See detailed comments for examples.

3) Sustainability/unsustainability
My third critique regards the structure and focus of Sections 3.5-3.6: Why is it important to discuss (and emphasize as a key result in the abstract) whether the historical coal production practices were ecologically, socially, and economically SUSTAINABLE? It seems unfair to judge past practices against a modern sustainability lens -and it is not clear from the paper's framing what it is supposed to achieve. (It gives the impression that Section 3.5-3.6 were written to answer a research question about sustainability, while such a question was never posed.) This use of the term sustainability feels somewhat like a detour (and awakens questions such as the climate impact of the estimated 15,000 tons of coal produced -would it still be ecologically sustainable considering our current knowledge of anthropogenic climate change?). Is the sustainability "assessment" an explicit part of the SES framework used? Or would it not be enough to describe the practices' importance for city/development AND positive effect on the forest? (While I'm not an expert on terms like metabolism or interconnectivity, it sounds more logical to me to phrase it in such terms, as in this sentence: "the social-ecological metabolism of the city was completely interconnected with the forest dynamics and charcoal producers".) Regarding the "social unsustainability" of the workers' conditions and marginalized position, I also find this very relevant, although I am not convinced about the cause and effect: do the authors mean that they became MORE marginalized through the coal work? (or was it rather something they resorted to because there were few options, and which granted them some level of selfsustenance/autonomy). Rather than putting a label of sustainable/unsustainable, it might be interesting to know something more (if possible) about the work and the exchange, did their marginalized position and the clandestine nature of the work also mean that they had to sell the coal at suboptimal/ exploitative prices (etc)?
In relation to this, the description of the historical contribution to the city and to the forest (section 3.5) and the present-day traditional/forest/quilombola populations (Section 3.6) appear rather isolated, even though Fig 7 suggests there is a link. Could the authors possibly make the

INTRODUCTION
Social-Ecological Systems/social-ecological system/Social-Ecological system/SES -should be consistent (I agree writing it out is the more elegant choice and easier for the reader).
"adaptive landscape" -possibly confusing since the term adaptive can have different meanings across ecology, SES and the more socially-oriented sustainability science. The same is true for terms like "individuals" and "communities" (I spotted the latter used in two different meanings in the article), which might call for specifications like "plant and animal communities" (or what is most suitable) to avoid confusion. AND resilience (would be important to know whether the authors are using it in line with ecological or social-ecological literature)! "Social Ecological Systems (SES) has been the main theoretical and methodological framework used in the emerging field of Sustainability Science" -can be debated! I would at least say "ONE OF the most important" and support it with a reference -such as the recent Clark and Harley (see eg its Table 1). There are different versions of the framework and many of the more social science-oriented Sustainability scolars are critical to this "biosphere based" Sustainability Science (they would also strongly object to the ensuing claim that SES as an important part of "social research" today -most social research still does not even consider the environment!).
"good knowledge" -sounds simplistic, good for what?
The role of the few paragraphs on pages 3-4 that talk about the three history-related fields (Historical Ecology, Environmental History and Historical Geography) is not fully clear. The authors use a language of "highlighting contributions" of fields that have (similarly to SES) "contributed to the construction of an approach that seeks to overcome the separation between nature and society". They could take a more active stance here (do you draw on all three in the paper? Say so -and how! Is there a lack of integration between these fields and SES science? Say so -backed up by recent references!) If they are merely "conceptual tools" the authors draw on, but do not help formulating the research gaps/questions, perhaps consider putting them in a separate "Conceptual framework" section (where it also might be relevant to define terms like "resilience" and "biomass resilience" and how they are linked).
Vestiges -is this a specific geography term? Would it be possible to use a simpler term throughout (such as traces?) -or else perhaps provide a definition and reference.

METHODS AND MATERIALS
Quilombos/Quilombola -the term first appears in methods section without definition. Possibly lift the explanation here from the later footnote, since not many non-Brazilians know about them and it is a recurrent & interesting feature of the paper.
"This paper synthesizes past studies conducted by two of the authors, in the last decade" -could already here add the references mentioned in the author-supplied statements (34, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, and 44) and perhaps mention that they were published in Portuguese, which helps motivate the publication of this paper (=to reach a new audience).
"historical, archaeological, vegetation and spatial data" -could be vegetational for consistent form "iconography"? Could the authors use a few words to explain what this means as a research method.
check wording and logic of this extract -"intense" lack and "clear" focus sound a bit off, and it reads like the present study IS charcoal production (rather than IS ON/ABOUT): "In the present studycharcoal production in the forests of Southeast Brazil -the lack of documental information is intense. For the charcoal manufacturing process, generic references are found, with a clear focus on metallurgy from 16th to 19th century, such as the work of Landgraf et al (37), or from the beginning of the 20th century (38)." "Concerning sampling techniques" -confusing, I find that the paragraph does not explain about sampling techniques. What is the role of two different study areas, do their different features allow for some kind of comparison? ("also" in the next sentence is confusing -it reads as if the field methods are another sampling technique, is this the intention?) "kiln" -could this term possibly be explained at first mention -e.g. by oven/production site or what would be the proximate word -and/or by referring to the excellent Figure 1?
"first-level" "second-tier" -Between this explanation, the result section, and Figure 3, I am a bit confused by the notion first/second (level)/tier (choose one?!) variable. First/second in relation to what scale? Adding a sentence here, and/or redesigning Figure 3 to elucidate this, might be useful to explain/exemplify the levels. I also wonder why some, but not all, of these abbreviations (e.g. U and ECO) show up in Table 3 and Figure 7.

Sections 3.1 -3.4
"There is a limited amount of written documentation about charcoal production prior to the 20th century THAT CAN BE FOUND." -last words are redundant "Inscribed in the current landscape as signs or traces of different NATURES" -I suppose the authors refer to different "types/kinds"? Perhaps avoid using the term nature in other meanings than "natural environment" to avoid confusing the reader ("such as" before the colon can also be dropped to avoid repetition).
"the charcoal activity demanded very few initial inputs (of tools) and guaranteed relative independence" -I understand there is little documentation, but do the authors have any idea or estimated guess as to who bought the coal (if people in the city, how it was transported from the remote areas?) and what was offered as payment (money/goods?). Would be relevant to know to understand how it contributed to their subsistence.
"geographical tableau" -not even with the help of Google I could find an explanation for this term (in English). Can it be explained/defined, even if only with a few words? Following the reference, I get to Gomes' concept of "quadros geográficos" -would perhaps be interesting to lift this into the text for the international reader, sth like "Borrowing a concept from Brazilian Geographer Paulo da Costa Gomes, such evidence constitutes today a 'geographical frame' (quadro geográfico), meaning…/referring to [geography as a graphic way of structuring thought]. This frame allows us to think…." (I prefer frame over tableu since it has the same double meaning of theoretical frame(work)/lens and painting, see also https://journals.openedition.org/confins/21686) "the worker's management planning" -do you mean workers' (plural)?
"Our research is still under development"???? -confusing, will you add more results, or do you mean that the paper is the first of a number of planned publications?
"In the Pedra Branca forest, 104 ruins were found and 107 ruins found in the Tijuca Massif."confusing sentence structure, using the same format/order for both would help the reader "In the Pedra Branca Massif, although the vast majority of charcoal sites and ruins are located below 300 m altitude, only 30% are above this elevation." -delete "although", I see no opposition between the first and second statement (could be joined with semicolon) -whole paragraph (about the elevation) could be revised for consistency and clarity.
"steep, elevated and distant from level terrain" -seems to be a noun missing after elevated?
"it was a parallel and marginal occupation for the farmers and land owners". -I suppose you mean "TO/(in the eyes of) the farmers and land owners, it was a parallel and marginal occupation." -"for" sounds like they were the ones carrying it out.
"In part, this is due to a fact that may have played a role" confusing sentence, either it is a fact or a possibility, can be put more simply as  "The regrowth of stumps may have played a role in the return of the forest: some species that were cut for charcoal production are able to regrow and, since they lose apical dominance, they created bifurcations in the regrowth process ( Figure 5) (60, 65).
"constitutes a macro vestige of past use of the forest" -what is a macro vestige? Can you use a simpler term? Or just delete the clause to avoid repetition with next sentence:  "This pattern is relatively common in areas that were deforested. The (!) resprouted tree stumps compose one of the vegetation indicators of past forest use alongside native species with anomalous distributions and persistence and dominance of previously introduced exotic species, especially fruit trees and ritualistic herbs (60)." "and that was also consumed by the charcoal workers" -do you mean "it"?
"Jackfruit is rich in carbohydrate and protein and of low cost, it was potentially transported to the areas of its work in the forest, germinating from the uneaten remains and discarded in the forest." -Check this sentence for repetition (low cost) and logic (should it be "their work" and "remains discarded"?) -check the rest of the paragraph for grammar/punctuation (e.g. "ON the edge") Carioca -word needs explanation to non-Portuguese speakers Sections 3.5 -3.6 (The first paragraph in 3.5 sounds a bit more like methods language to me.) It could be clearer in this section what are the main takeaways from the impressive Table 3. (That address research gaps/contribute to new knowledge).
"biomass resilience"? term was never defined -does it relate to the SES framework or is it an ecological term?
"Ecological novelty includes never before seen patterns of species composition and relative abundance in a given biome (22), that include anomalous distribution of native species, which may present super dominant populations." -repetition of "include" "energetic sustainability" -do you mean energy supply? Why the need to call it sustainability "with increase forest protection legislation at the same time that the demand for charcoal increased"' -do you mean increased? (possibly use other word to avoid repetition, "as FPL was rolled out/enforced/… at the same time that") "Patzlaff (50) … identified tree species that were burned in the past" -I would be curious of how many he identified and perhaps which were most common?
"The ecosystem has kept marks of this history in many of its attributes, SELECTING long living earlysecondary native and exotic species" -do you mean "including"/"such as"?

CONCLUSION
"lighter" -is this the right word, would torch be better?
"at the cost of their own invisibility and marginalization" -does this mean they become MORE marginalized???? Not sure this is currently backed up.
"Reforestation efforts in the north facing slopes … is further hindered" -should be "are".
"In terms of sustainability it would be far more advantageous to harvest the jackfruit from these novel ecosystems, generating income and dealing with issues of food insecurity in the slums of Rio" -I agree (with the point and the use of sustainability)!!! this would be an interesting research project! (also corresponding with the 'fitness'/organic/vegetarian trend we describe in our study on biocultural diversity in Rocinha) -although there is a conflict with a latter sentence mentioning jackfruit as an "important source of food for the population" -this makes it seem like this is already the case?
Argumentation in this last (long!) sentence is somewhat circular: "Although some management issues remain to be resolved, such as the management of exotic fruit species that still provides an important source of food for the population (both marginalized and affluent), it is noteworthy the efforts of flexible (and perhaps not purposeful) management of the Pedra Branca state park to incorporate quilombo areas and areas of persimmon and banana production, important forest products, within its limits, albeit with some territorial conflicts unsolved." Is it really a concluding remark, it sounds more like new topics are being introduced (which might be more relevant to bring up in sections 3.5-3.6)?

TABLES AND FIGURES
The tables and figures are great and really help to illustrate the text! Table 3 is impressive and gives an overview of the complex interactions! It is however not so intuitive from the table why some variables appear horizontally and others vertically (i.e. 1 tier, 2 tier). Perhaps including such information in the titles (or possibly using another layout) could help to see this? (Also check for consistent use of small/capital letters and hyphen/n-dash. ) If short of space for figures, Fig 3-4 could be combined into one (might also allow for better comparison).

Response to Reviewer 2
We are very grateful for the detailed and thorough review and analysis that Review 2 made on our manuscript. Not only did he/she indicate the problems, but also suggested paths to address these problems. Reviewer's 2 suggestions and comments were all addressed and helped improve substantially our paper. The reviews are divided in three overarching concerns (Part 1) and further detailed comments (Part 2).

Part 1 -Overarching concerns
Overarching concern 1: A more clearly articulated research question (& associated research gap) would better motivate how the paper contributes to advancing science. The authors could go another step backwards to identify the research gap that the questions fill. Some ideas: (a) The following two sentences could be developed into a paragraph with some more details and references: "Understanding how societies used natural resources in the past, producing landscapes imprinted with our history, has become a very important field of scientific inquiry in recent decades. Without having a good knowledge about how the landscape transformation process took place, one cannot make good management decisions regarding its current use, resource management and biodiversity conservation." (E.g., what is considered "good knowledge" or "good management", why do we have poor knowledge or management, what are practical or scientific gaps or hurdles (including recent references that say this is a gap) or what could this knowledge achieve on the ground for sustainability, land use, or marginalized populations…?), AND/OR: (b) Is there any problem/drama/disagreement regarding NOVEL ecosystems and conservation?, AND/OR: (c) Do the authors want to say that their approach drawing on Historical Ecology, Environmental History and Historical Geography to make a historically grounded SES analysis is the novelty, then they should perhaps write 2-3 sentences here to give a brief overview of other historical SES studies and what they did or didn't achieve. (E.g., while aspect x and y have been considerably studied, no one looked at aspect z.), AND/OR: (d) Biocultural diversity is briefly mentioned in section 3.6. IN CASE authors want the results to speak to ongoing debates on biocultural diversity/biocultural landscapes here are some recent studies that might formulate related research gaps: Hanspach, J., et al (2020). Biocultural approaches to sustainability: A systematic review of the scientific literature.

Response:
We fully addressed this concern by reframing and fleshing out our research questions (and research gap) and research goals ( We did not find any other historical SES studies to reference and discuss what they did or didn't achieve. (d) We used the reference and other biocultural diversity approach papers to connect biocultural diversity to novel ecosystems and social-ecological systems on p. 3-4 lines 106-118.
Overarching concern 2: Some terms could be better defined/explained for an international/ interdisciplinary audience. The authors use some terms without explaining or defining them, including "resilience", "biomass resilience", "geographical tableau", "ecosystem services" (not sure if this one is considered self-explanatory these days), "macro vestiges", etc. Some of these might stem from the translation from Portuguese. To help the reader (and save them from having to google unfamiliar terms) and for the paper to reach its full potential of international and interdisciplinary spread, I would