An Evolutionary Game Analysis of the Relationship between Core Stakeholders of Forest Governance
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The topic of relations between various forest management stakeholders has potential, because the topic of solving conflicts of interest is the subject of research, for example, by sociologists, psychologists or economists. Learning the mechanisms that govern them may allow the formulation of guidelines for managing them and resolving conflict situations. Unfortunately, the implementation of the article itself is not perfect and requires many corrections - especially with regard to emphasizing its importance, referring to a number of literature sources. Relevant comments are provided below. After making corrections, I think the article will be suitable for publication in the journal Sustainability.
- I understand the meaning of the introduction at the beginning, to outline the general issues and justify taking up the topic presented in the publication. However, I would like to know what the numbers in circles mean? I thought they were books, but I guess not.
- I think that the literature review could be done in a more synthetic, comprehensive way, referring to more bibliographic items. From what you write, they are available, so I think it would be worth presenting them. As for the current items, they were presented quite descriptively, I think it could be more condensed. This is an important point, especially since this is a review article, not a research one.
- What is REDD? Please explain.
- What is the novelty of the presented research? Why were they presented? What knowledge gap do they fill? Who are they aimed at? Suggesting descriptions, it will be a rather narrow group of recipients.
- I am not convinced about the fonts used to explain the symbols. This makes the text difficult to read. Sometimes there are also spaces between words. Perhaps it would be better to break down these assumptions in the hypotheses more, you can use bullet points, equations, etc. The visibility of the translated variables is important, especially since the symbols are described in the form of equations in Table 2-1.
- I think that more diagrams presenting the presented assumptions or procedures would enrich the text.
- Please pay attention to the way the text is written, e.g. the title of the table should be capitalized, as should the content of the table in columns and rows.
- Lines 188-193: what are these strategies? Please explain.
- 10 references per review article is definitely not enough. The authors practically do not refer to any sources when analyzing the model and describing the simulation.
- Equation notations leave a lot to be desired. Unfortunately, it is difficult to grasp the content presented.
- Missing charts and graphic material. They could add a lot to the text.
You should check typos, no spaces, double spaces, but also text that is not uniform. In terms of comprehensibility, used vocabulary and grammar, I have no complaints.
Author Response
Point 1: I understand the meaning of the introduction at the beginning, to outline the general issues and justify taking up the topic presented in the publication. However, I would like to know what the numbers in circles mean? I thought they were books, but I guess not.
Response 1: Teacher, you understand correctly. These two numbers are footnotes to the article, indicating the source of the sentence.
Point 2: What is REDD? Please explain.
Response2: REDD+, which refers to the reduction of emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, together with sustainable forest management and the protection and enhancement of forest carbon stocks, is an important component of global efforts to mitigate climate change.
Point 3: What is the novelty of the presented research? Why were they presented? What knowledge gap do they fill? Who are they aimed at? Suggesting descriptions, it will be a rather narrow group of recipients.
Response3:it expands the perspective of forest governance stakeholders.The interest relationship among forest governance stakeholders will change with the influence of political, economic, cultural and other factors. In this paper, evolutionary game method is used to build a dynamic evolutionary game model, analyze the evolutionary stability strategy (ESS) and replicator dynamics (RD) of the three core stakeholders of government, enterprises and rural community residents, and calculate the equilibrium stability point. On this basis, numerical simulation is carried out. In the process of forest governance, the dynamic process of the relationship and strategy selection of core stakeholders of forest governance and the stability strategies of various parties are analyzed, and the changes in the relationship of stakeholders of forest governance are more accurately presented, which is conducive to the construction of interest coordination mechanism.
Point 4: Lines 188-193: what are these strategies? Please explain.
Response4:There are eight different strategy combinations in the game between the government, forestry enterprises and rural community residents. They are: (government guidance, enterprise integrity, rural community participation); (Government guidance, dishonest enterprises, participation of rural community residents); (Government guidance, enterprise integrity, non-participation of rural community residents); (Government guidance, dishonest enterprises, non-participation of rural community residents); (Government non-guidance, enterprise integrity, rural community residents' participation) (government non-guidance, enterprise dishonesty, rural community residents' participation); (Government does not guide, enterprise integrity, rural community residents do not participate); (Government does not guide, enterprises are not honest, rural community residents do not participate)
Remark:Some other suggestions are modified in the revised draft.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
Your work is interesting, but as a reviewer this article, I can not allow for publication now. You have a many mistakes and Your work is not good. All may comments, You can find all my comments in the PDF file.
What results from the results? Too many numbers :(
But, You have to arrange the work correctly, according to the requirements of the journal, to cite correctly, and you have many other things to improve :(
Best regards
Reviewer
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
I am not specialist from English langeuage.
Author Response
Thank you very much for the opinions of the expert teachers, and put forward guiding suggestions for the revision of this paper.
Point 1: Abstract - it is not properly written. There should be a background, methods, results and conclusions. Here we have chaos.
Response1: In the abstract part, according to the teacher's opinion, the abstract has been modified according to the layout of background, method, result and conclusion, see the revised draft for details.
Point 2: Introduction - is not correctly written. There is a lack of literature citation. No specific goal. No description of the content of the article.
Response2:According to the expert opinion, this paper deepens the introduction and adds foreign periodicals.
Point 3: please, add other point: Discusion. Next Conclusion
Response3：According to the expert teacher's opinion, At the end of the paper, this research is discussed.
Thanks again for the expert teacher's advice.
Reviewer 3 Report
Forest management is of great practical significance, having some specifics in every country. The management model proposed by the authors of the article represents a specific-to-China interaction between the government, economic subjects and the population. In other countries, such an interaction would differ greatly. Therefore, the topic of the paper – despite its great practical significance at the local level – could only be used limitedly in other parts of the world.
Some parts of the article should be named in accordance with the generally accepted principles of scientific literature.
Ninety percent of the article is comprised of descriptions of modeling approaches and procedures. This is probably beneficial for mastering the modeling of complex systems. However, this works best in text books rather than in international journals, since the method is usually not made into the results (except rare specific practical scientific journals). If during modeling, the authors discovered some patterns of interaction of actors, then the article should be complemented by some examples that confirm the results of modeling for various regions of various countries. Perhaps, the article should be complemented by tables and diagrams illustrating the results rather than the modeling procedure. As I see, the article contains quite novel approaches to the studied problem. Unfortunately, the paper fails to emphasize this novelty. It would be best if the authors would compare their methods and modeling methods used by other researchers. In general, the article needs a serious revision and expansion. The authors should put themselves on a reader’s place, familiarize a reader with the situation that has developed in this sphere, briefly describe the basics of their approach, and suggest possible practical conclusions that are new to science. Modeling is great for the development of practical skills of a researcher, but at the same time modeling should seek for new patterns around the globe (interaction of economic, social and natural environment), which would be of great scientific value.
The paper needs improvements, specifically in describing the novelty for readers in the “Abstract”, keywords, improving design of the text and tables, and references.
Extensive editing of English language required.
Author Response
Thank you very much for the expert teacher's advice.
Point 1: The paper needs improvements, specifically in describing the novelty for readers in the “Abstract”, keywords, improving design of the text and tables, and references.
Response 1: According to the expert teacher's opinion, this paper focuses on the abstract, introduction, references were improved and supplemented. Reference is made to the latest international forest management research articles.
Point 2: Extensive editing of English language required.
Response2: As the author, my English foundation is not very good, so I will seek help from colleagues or teachers in the editorial department for English language quality.Thanks again for the expert teacher's advice.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I would like to thank the Authors for their comments. All the changes I requested have been made. The article can be published in its current form.
Author Response
Point 1:I would like to thank the Authors for their comments. All the changes I requested have been made. The article can be published in its current form.
Response1:Thank you very much for the teacher's affirmation, giving this paper a very meaningful guidance. In the future study, I will continue to strive to improve the level of scientific research ability.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
I sent You PDF file with my comments earlier. You still not changed article. I think You must to do it. In this form article is not to publishing. In my first review, you find all information about this article and my comments.
best regards
Reviewer
Author Response
Point 1: Abstract - it is not properly written. There should be a background, methods, results and conclusions. Here we have chaos.
Response1: In the abstract part, according to the teacher's opinion, the abstract has been modified according to the layout of background, method, result and conclusion, see the revised draft for details.
Point 2: Introduction - is not correctly written. There is a lack of literature citation. No specific goal. No description of the content of the article.
Response2:According to the expert opinion, this paper deepens the introduction and adds foreign periodicals.
Point3: A lot of information should be at the methodology point, besides, I miss the table indicating specific examples for keywords. I'm talking about methodology.
Response3:In the literature review section. The author adds the discussion on the research methods of foreign journals.
Point4:Methodology - please describe the methods thoroughly, because in the earlier point you have references to the amount of literature used. There is an error, both points should be corre
Response4:In terms of methods, the author adds the introduction of evolutionary game theory and the comparison with traditional game theory in this paper
Point 5: please, add other point: Discusion. Next Conclusion
Response5:According to the expert teacher's opinion, At the end of the paper, this research is discussed.
Point6:You can find a lot of items on the internet that concern this problem. The list should be expanded and contain positions from around the world.
Response6:In the references of the article, the author increases the number of references and broadens the research perspective.
The author's reply can be found in the attached PDF, mike.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Unfortunately, the authors ignored the comments. The authors of the manuscript did not want to take the point of view of the reader. The authors did not want to analyze the literature and limited themselves to pointing to several hundred publications. This is clearly not enough.
I can repeat my previous remarks.
Some parts of the article should be named in accordance with the generally accepted principles of scientific literature.
Ninety percent of the article is comprised of descriptions of modeling approaches and procedures. This is probably beneficial for mastering the modeling of complex systems. However, this works best in text books rather than in international journals, since the method is usually not made into the results (except rare specific practical scientific journals). If during modeling, the authors discovered some patterns of interaction of actors, then the article should be complemented by some examples that confirm the results of modeling for various regions of various countries. Perhaps, the article should be complemented by tables and diagrams illustrating the results rather than the modeling procedure. As I see, the article contains quite novel approaches to the studied problem. Unfortunately, the paper fails to emphasize this novelty. It would be best if the authors would compare their methods and modeling methods used by other researchers. In general, the article needs a serious revision and expansion. The authors should put themselves on a reader’s place, familiarize a reader with the situation that has developed in this sphere, briefly describe the basics of their approach, and suggest possible practical conclusions that are new to science. Modeling is great for the development of practical skills of a researcher, but at the same time modeling should seek for new patterns around the globe (interaction of economic, social and natural environment), which would be of great scientific value.
Author Response
Point 1: The paper needs improvements, specifically in describing the novelty for readers in the “Abstract”, keywords, improving design of the text and tables, and references.
Response 1: According to the expert teacher's opinion, this paper focuses on the abstract, introduction, references were improved and supplemented. Reference is made to the latest international forest management research articles.
Point 2: Extensive editing of English language required.
Response2: As the author, my English foundation is not very good, so I will seek help from colleagues or teachers in the editorial department for English language quality.
Point 3: Ninety percent of the article is comprised of descriptions of modeling approaches and procedures. This is probably beneficial for mastering the modeling of complex systems. However, this works best in text books rather than in international journals, since the method is usually not made into the results (except rare specific practical scientific journals). If during modeling, the authors discovered some patterns of interaction of actors, then the article should be complemented by some examples that confirm the results of modeling for various regions of various countries. Perhaps, the article should be complemented by tables and diagrams illustrating the results rather than the modeling procedure. As I see, the article contains quite novel approaches to the studied problem. Unfortunately, the paper fails to emphasize this novelty. It would be best if the authors would compare their methods and modeling methods used by other researchers. In general, the article needs a serious revision and expansion. The authors should put themselves on a reader’s place, familiarize a reader with the situation that has developed in this sphere, briefly describe the basics of their approach, and suggest possible practical conclusions that are new to science. Modeling is great for the development of practical skills of a researcher, but at the same time modeling should seek for new patterns around the globe (interaction of economic, social and natural environment), which would be of great scientific value.
Response3:The teacher's guidance is very meaningful. In the literature review, the author added the foreign research on forestry stakeholder research methods. The connotation of evolutionary game model is introduced in detail, and the difference between evolutionary game model and traditional game model is introduced.
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
You changed article and add my comments. Now, article is better.
Good luck
Reviewer
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript has become much better. I recommend it for publication.
