Biodiversity Protection in Private Forests: PES Schemes, Institutions and Prosocial Behavior

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

I consider the article is suitable for publication in its present form.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, thank you again for your work.

Best regards , the authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have made substantial amendments to address the concerns of all reviewers and I think the paper has been substantially improved. 

I didn't understand the following statement around line 1033: Consequently, retirement is the most common professional status, whereas there are very few retired foresters in the sample." How can retirement be the most common status but there be very few retired foresters? Just requires clarification. Also, a different font size or type is used on lines 1038-9. Other than this I think it is a high wuality paper and worthy of publication. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

thank you again for your work.

Best regards, the authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors, 

thank you for your very interesting paper. It is obvious, that you have made a lot of work on the paper after the first revision. However, there are still two areas that need to be worked on and significantly improved:

1. Conclusion part - I definitelly agree with the Reviewer 1 and his comment "The conclusions seem weak.  Private landowners do not act as one. There is variability in their responses to protecting biodiversity. Therefore one policy/program does not fit all. Who do you hope will read this article, and what do you hope the outcome will be?  Try to be more focused on your "take home" message." Regarding this I do not see any improvement within this part of the paper neither any response to the comment. Therefore, the conclusion part needs to be reworked.
2. Discussion part is missing. It is very important to discuss our findings with other studies, therefore it should to be part of a scientific article. 

All the best for strengthening the paper.

Author Response

see attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The manuscript estimates the effectiveness of incentive mechanisms of private foresters to enhance protection for biodiversity by the discrete choice experiment. The research topic is meaningful.

Author Response

see attachment

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors, 

significant progress is visible in your article, especially in the conclusion part. However, the discussion seems more like a summary of the results, I still miss the scientific discussion of your results with other studies. This part of the article needs to be reworked.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

we thank you for your comments that helped us to enrich our article. We add a new paragraph in the discussion to enlarge the view and our results.

Best regards

Anne Stenger

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

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

The English could be much improved and that would help with clarity.  There are also numerous examples of Figures with French wording.  It would also help to explain what is meant by "crowding out effect" before using it.  The Introduction discusses results, which should not be in this section.  I am not an expert with DCE, but don't follow the two figures (Choix 1 et Choix 14).  Why only include these?  The conclusions seem weak.  Private landowners do not act as one.  There is variability in their responses to protecting biodiversity.  Therefore one policy/program does not fit all. Who do you hope will read this article, and what do you hope the outcome will be?  Try to be more focused on your "take home" message.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article reports on a choice experiment concerning the decision of private foresters to change behaviour and provide more protection for biodiversity. It is publishable but in my opinion needs substantial rewriting.

First, the reader does not get a sense of the industry under investigation, which is needed to understand the structure and significance of the choice experiment. We need to understand the context under which private forestry is taking place. For example, are private landowners large companies with a long-term interest in preserving their forest resources and who supply timber for construction, small landowners desperate for income providing fire wood to locals, medium-sized enterprises providing tourism and sustainable forestry services or any combination thereof? I am sure the authors understand these details but the reader does not and it is significant for interpreting results. For example, crowding out, which they explain as a key motivation for undertaking the study, is more likely if the forester is wealthy and conducting sustainable forestry and monetary incentives are more likely to be of interest to poverty-stricken landowners. Contractual and policy institutions are also significant. Some landowners may be in contractual arrangements which, to them, mean that a reduction in yield to preserve biodiversity is impossible to contemplate. This may not be relevant but the reader cannot tell without a section early in the paper that sets the contextual background to the industry or the institutions (norms and conventions and political context) surrounding the actions of foresters.

Similar to this point, the habitus of foresters is important. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus or other theoretical frameworks that explain sociological behaviour are extremely important for understanding the choices made in the experiment. Choice experiments effectively assume that decision makers are rationally trading off attributes but this is probably not the case. Instead, fields of understanding inhibit choices and tradeoffs and understanding, again, the context within which forestery takes place is important for interpreting results.

Second, the article would be greatly enhanced by a description of the theoretical foundations of crowding out. Crowding out is almost mentioned in passing without an explanation of really what it is. In the economic literature, the concept derives from institutional economics and the theory of group behaviour likewise needs to be explained from a theoretical perspective. From my knowledge, crowding out is the reversal of biodiversity actions when a reward is offered. I am not sure this is the interpretation on page 6, lines 218 onwards. That seems to be about being seen as green through a published contract. In any case, an exploration into the theory and justification of the approach in the paper is needed.

Third, while I am not an expert in econometrics, I was struck by the concept of including a dummy variable for all the organization attributes in one econometric estimation. I have probably misunderstood the approach but if the only choices in the choice cards are either that the commitment is with forest professionals, or administration, or collectives, or family, then using a dummy variable for each option leads to miss-estimation. If there is another option, it is fine, but perhaps this could be explained more clearly.

Fourth, the options for biodiversity actions seem very minimal to me. The main reason for this is that they aren’t permanent. The main tradeoff in some contexts when considering biodiversity protection is the impact on farm/land resale values. This won’t arise when the actions aren’t permanent. I know the choice experiment itself can’t be changed, but the authors need to discuss this issue. For example, some landowners may not have chosen to protect even given monetary incentives not because of crowding out but because the action has such a minimal impact on biodiversity.

Finally, I am not sure why the organisation matters so much. I can see that landowners would feel more comfortable entering into agreements with forest professionals, because they know those institutions. This is hinted at in the paper but could do with some more discussion.   

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

I have reviewed the paper and found it an interesting paper.

General comments

This research deals with important aspects relative to the effectiveness of incentive mechanisms in policies enhancing private forest owners’ biodiversity protection. In particular, the paper focuses on the link between forest owners’ motivations, incentives, and institutions and questions the incentives of the current biodiversity protection policies.

Comments

• Please moderate English changes required.
• Please see carefully the journal guidelines (e.g. add the correct number for the references etc).

• Please add the below references in the MS:

Panagiotis Koulelis, Alexandra Solomou, Vasilia Fassouli.2020. Sustainability Constraints in Greece. Focusing on Forest Management and Biodiversity.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dr_Panagiotis_Koulelis/publication/346630199_Sustainability_Constraints_in_Greece_Focusing_on_Forest_Management_and_Biodiversity/links/5fe1ca33299bf1408833704d/Sustainability-Constraints-in-Greece-Focusing-on-Forest-Management-and-Biodiversity.pdfce.

Vizzarri, M., Tognetti, R., & Marchetti, M. (2015). Forest ecosystem services: issues and challenges for biodiversity, conservation, and management in Italy. Forests, 6(6), 1810-1838.

Nieto-Romero, M., Oteros-Rozas, E., González, J. A., & Martín-López, B. (2014). Exploring the knowledge landscape of ecosystem services assessments in Mediterranean agroecosystems: insights for future research. Environmental Science & Policy, 37, 121-133.

• Cross-reference all of the citations in the text with the references in the reference section.
• Make sure that all references have a corresponding citation within the text and vice versa.
• Double-check the spelling of the author names and dates and make sure they are correct and consistent with the citations.
• Spell out all journal titles in the reference section.
• Make sure that all figures and tables are cited within the text and they are cited in consecutive order.
• Make sure that all Figure captions are placed below the figures, while table captions must be placed above the Tables.