Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is very interesting and extremely actual in the present period of serious ecological problems on the global scale. The manuscript is logically “constructed” and well written, covers a broad area related to mangroves endangerment and potential effects of their decline to the humankind. The authors collected really extensive background information and made consistent interpretation and synthesis.  

I have just a few comments which might improve the quality of the manuscript.

Abstract, Keywords and over all text – I don’t think that “capitalist model (capitalism)” itself is any reason of the recent ecological problems. I am rather sure that for instance the real socialism model (e.g. Soviet Union) was the worse for nature and ecological issues. Therefore, I recommend replacing this term by another one, for instance: “exploitative model” or “exploitation”.

Since Europeans (a substantial part of readers) are not very familiar with mangroves, it would be nice to describe more about this kind of forests. The best way would be showing any picture (map) and table giving basic information on a global scale. Perhaps a global map showing occurrence of main mangroves complexes (current status or also maybe changes of their area in the last x-years). Then, a table might show a list of the main tree species – English and Latin names, estimates on their current area (possibly decreases in certain period), maybe also regions: countries or continents of species-specific occurrence.        

I feel like more attention would be paid on effects of forestry activities. I think that just forest management is extremely important in this problem. I mean both positive (preventive and corrective measures) and negative (exploitative approaches) consequences related to forestry intervention would be explained.

I recommend preparing one more section, specifically Conclusions. The section would summarize available findings, stressing the most relevant measures to be taken and maybe also explaining expected future tendencies in this field.  

    

Author Response

Please see the attachement

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors present an appraisal of the chances of saving mangrove habitats. The subject is important and timely. The overview of the situation with mangroves and their associated habitats is important and certainly relevant.

However, the authors use very “brutal” language which although understandable is not always appropriate in a scientific publication. There are ways to write politely and firmly without being arrogant of what you believe in. I must admit that the language and the tirade against capitalism, developing countries, sustainable development, etc. alienated me to the point that the authors completely missed me in their dialogue. It would be interesting to know what the authors have done to date about all that they are ranting about.

English requires a serious edit. There are several problems that have crept in, in addition to that said above. Example Page 2 line 59. “These findings are nowise new, ……” did you mean are in no way new,….

I strongly recommend the authors to:

1. Tone down their language
2. Rewrite the paper as a sustainable review of the situation

3. Authors can include a paper that is very relevant to their introduction: Elchacham et al. 2020. Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass. Nature 588, 442–444. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-3010-5

Author Response

The authors present an appraisal of the chances of saving mangrove habitats. The subject is important and timely. The overview of the situation with mangroves and their associated habitats is important and certainly relevant.

However, the authors use very “brutal” language which although understandable is not always appropriate in a scientific publication. There are ways to write politely and firmly without being arrogant of what you believe in. I must admit that the language and the tirade against capitalism, developing countries, sustainable development, etc. alienated me to the point that the authors completely missed me in their dialogue. It would be interesting to know what the authors have done to date about all that they are ranting about.

Authors: We have toned down the language considerably. However, we believe that some degree of incisiveness in speech is necessary, especially in a manuscript that discusses such relevant und urgent issues. Indeed, the qualification of ‘brutal’ over our language may be result of the ‘brutal’ situation that our Planet is suffering, which we reflect from studied references about ecology and economy. We hope the compromise we present in the revised version is suitable for this publication format.

Reviewer: English requires a serious edit. There are several problems that have crept in, in addition to that said above. Example Page 2 line 59. “These findings are nowise new, ……” did you mean are in no way new,….

Authors: The sentence mentioned was rewritten. We also made further changes throughout the document. We appreciate any further specific suggestions to improve the English. If an overall problem persists, we ask the reviewer and the editor to let us know, so we could consider a more thorough check.

Reviewer: I strongly recommend the authors to:

Tone down their language

Authors: We have done so, wherever pertinent.

Rewrite the paper as a sustainable review of the situation

Authors can include a paper that is very relevant to their introduction: Elchacham et al. 2020. Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass. Nature 588, 442–444. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-3010-5

Authors: We rewrote parts of the article following suggestion. We have also included the suggested reference. 

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an interesting review, covering a broad respect of mangroves. Still, some statements in the current manuscript are not convincing and needs more clarification and improvement.

 

First, I find that the title is not specific and quite big. Is that appropriate and maybe the authors need to reconsider. Second, as a review manuscript, the authors did the study based on argument from literature and media published articles as written on Line 101-103. This might not be sufficient, since the review articles usually search the literature and provide search terms or keywords and the database, for example, the Web of Science. If this information is included, then it is much more clear how the authors performed the literature search and how the searching literature is selected. Third, several statements in the manuscript are lack of proper references and seem like the personal judgements. For instance, Line 393-396, Line 421-427and Line 720-722. Lastly, the writing needs to use academic and scientific languages, but it is not formal in several places and the grammar of the writing needs to be checked as well.

I have some specific comments and suggestions as below:

1. Line 8-9 needs some improvement.
2. Line 78 and Line 485, the citations may be too many in one place. With regards to References on the list, the citation type is not coherent. Moreover, “submitted article” cannot be in References and could be cited in the main text.
3. Line 386, is it “rot” or “decompose”?
4. Line 466, what is the meaning of “States”?
5. Line 473-475, it seems the sentence is not logic.
6. Line 521-524, the authors used “the United States” and “the USA”. It should be consentient. And what is “BP, 2019”? The same problem happens on Line 569.
7. The unit of km² is not properly written and the authors should check throughout the article.
8. Why there are so many “…” in the manuscript?
9. The authors used “NDVI” and “NVDI”. One may be wrong.
10. In Table 1, I am not sure if “N.C.” and “N.” can be used in this way.

 

 

Author Response

This is an interesting review, covering a broad respect of mangroves. Still, some statements in the current manuscript are not convincing and needs more clarification and improvement.

Reviewer: First, I find that the title is not specific and quite big. Is that appropriate and maybe the authors need to reconsider.

Authors: We prefer to maintain the title, since we find that it captures briefly the character of the article. Firstly, “sustainable development” is a failed framework, in the sense that it has been unable to stop the overexploitation of natural resources (like mangrove forests), the disruption of the biogeochemical cycles and local and global pollution. Secondly, unlimited (economic) “development” is impracticable in a closed system like the Earth and will inevitably cause resource exhaustion. So, we express our concern about mangroves survival in the present situation.

Reviewer:  Second, as a review manuscript, the authors did the study based on argument from literature and media published articles as written on Line 101-103. This might not be sufficient, since the review articles usually search the literature and provide search terms or keywords and the database, for example, the Web of Science. If this information is included, then it is much more clear how the authors performed the literature search and how the searching literature is selected.

Authors: We have clarified this matter with the following sentence: ‘The arguments presented here find support on existing scientific and economic literature, experts based approach, and checked-media published articles. Therefore, this review is based on a non-systematic literature review’.  

It is important to stress that the Manuscript is also about Economics, and to support our statements, we used treatises and articles published in this area, together with the ecological literature.

Reviewer: 3) Third, several statements in the manuscript are lack of proper references and seem like the personal judgements. For instance, Line 393-396, Line 421-427 and Line 720-722 .

Authors: References were provided and included. If the sentence was not the one indicated by the Reviewer, please copy the sentence so we know exactly which one you are referring to, since our versions of the manuscript seem to have different a line numbering. The same for lines indicated below.

Reviewer: Lastly, the writing needs to use academic and scientific languages, but it is not formal in several places and the grammar of the writing needs to be checked as well.

Authors: We made changes throughout the document. We appreciate any further specific suggestions to improve the English. If an overall problem persists, we ask the reviewer and the editor to let us know, so we could consider a more thorough check.

Reviewer: I have some specific comments and suggestions as below:

Line 8-9 (47-48) needs some improvement.

Authors: The sentence mentioned has been improved.

Reviewer: Line 78 (117)and Line 485 (524), the citations may be too many in one place. With regards to References on the list, the citation type is not coherent. Moreover, “submitted article” cannot be in References and could be cited in the main text.

Authors: Citations have been reduced and adjusted. The ‘Submitted Article’ reference has been removed.

Reviewer: Line 386 (425), is it “rot” or “decompose”?

Authors: ‘Rot’ has been as replaced by ‘decompose’

Reviewer: Line 466 (508), what is the meaning of “States”?

Authors: ‘States’ has been replaced by ‘countries’

Reviewer: Line 473-475 (512-514), it seems the sentence is not logic.

Authors: The sentence has been rewritten: ‘Governments rarely join scientific/technical support with civil organizations and native populations, to promote and help initiatives to restore these life-supporting wetlands’.

Reviewer: Line 521-524 (560-563), the authors used “the United States” and “the USA”.  It should be consentient.

Authors: We sistematically used USA.

Reviewer: And what is “BP, 2019”? The same problem happens on Line 569.

Authors: We used ‘British Petroleum’ instead ‘BP’.

Reviewer: The unit of km2 is not properly written and the authors should check throughout the article.

The authors used “NDVI” and “NVDI”. One may be wrong.

Authors: These terms have been checked and corrected.

Why there are so many “…” in the manuscript?

Authors: We have removed several of them.

Reviewer: In Table 1, I am not sure if “N.C.” and “N.” can be used in this way.

Authors: We clarified in the Table’s caption that these are abbreviations, because of the character limit in each column, the regions’ name could not be written in full.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have revised the paper as per suggestions. 

Reviewer 3 Report

No further comments.