The Blue Management: Adding Economic Value to Restoration Actions in Collapsed Ecosystems

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper describes a Blue Management Concept proposing a strategy of 6 steps for achieving it as well as suggest 5 implementing business for adding economic value to the ecosystem restoration.

The concept paper is of average/good quality while a long bibliography survey has been conducted. 

The article is in the scope of the Sustainability journal, but no relative/recent paper from this journal is referenced. So, this could be improved.

Also, the authors can add the structure of the paper at the end of the introductory section.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thanks for your support in improving the manuscript. We performed an entire English editing of the entire structure o the manuscript.

We kept the divisions of the manuscript and checked the reference. Please, if you have a suggestion regarding a new reference we will be pleased to add it.

Best Regards

 

Reviewer 2 Report

I think the authors have very good intentions here.  They are interested in programs that will restore damaged ecosystems, etc.  That is a great goal.  There are some other merits in the manuscript, but all of them are overshadowed by the problems with it.

First, the authors have a very bad habit of writing in incomplete sentences.  I do not understand why they would do this.  For example, the "sentence" which starts on line 19 of the abstract, "Which results in the..." is not a complete sentence, it is a clause.  The same thing is true for the "sentence" which starts on line 23, "Offering a summarized...."  These are just not complete sentences.

It is good that the authors brought up the concepts of the Tragedy of the Commons and the Anthropocene. But some of the descriptions they use are pejorative, naive and really incorrect.  It is not appropriate to describe the Tragedy of the Commons as "ironic" because it is not ironic (line38).  It is the natural result of individual actors attempting to maximize their own gain when a resource is open access and exhaustible.  (Also the sentence there on line 38 is grammatically incorrect).  It is also not appropriate to use the word "greed" (line 50).  The tragedy of the commons occurs, yes because individuals are pursuing their own interests, but that is what individuals tend to do.  No tragedy emerges when property rights are completely defined specified and enforced.  The tragedy occurs when any of these three fail to be the case.

So the authors have good intentions, but fail to describe he problem adequately and use poor grammar throughout the manuscript

There does not seem to me to be anything new or possibly interesting in the latter part of the manuscript either.  The figures are too crowded and almost unreadable.  The prescriptions the authors suggest are naive, such as the statement that begins on line 248 about the need for government to attract industry funds to restore ecosystems.  These ideas, as well as those identified for nature exploiters and scientists are not new.  I do not believe they make a contribution to the journal.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

The entire manuscript was revised, and the English were entirely edited in a more accepted way.

We understand that we are not providing new ideas. Indeed, this manuscript aims to summarize and scrutinize the exploitation process and illustrate the successful and unsuccessful solutions. The proposed Blue Management follow the aims to support the restoration improvement by providing a line of thinking not used by all. In fact, several countries keep repeating the same management mistake due to a large number of explanations and suggestions and few summarised proposals to restore the ecosystems.

I hope you understand this point, where we are offering a summary to be used by industry sectors and governmental bodies. These stakeholders are the decision-makers, and in several of their decisions, they are overloaded by theories and keep repeating the same mistake. Mistakes that keep threatening massively the ecosystems annually.

This is the case in Qatar and several other countries. We are constantly dealing with the oil sector and the government stakeholder here, and is visible that they need to learn about how to proceed.

Based on these problems that we have to deal with every day here at the University, we proposed this manuscript based on searching for solutions to simplify the decisions of the industry sector and government. Highlighting that the first author in this manuscript is a subsea engineer from the Oil industry. He was the main one suggesting this simplification to add to their protocols and procedures within their daily routine.  In other words, we will use this manuscript in the interaction with the oil and Gas industry here and support the government in the explanation about how they can increase their profit by investing massively in restoration.  

We hope that you accept the manuscript with this modification. Your acceptance will directly support the restoration of the threatened marine resources of the Arabian-persian gulf and might help the restoration in others countries too.

Thank you again for all your suggestions, you helped to improve the manuscript significantly.

Best Regards

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Interesting article. I appreciate review papers, especially those that present an original approach to the problem as well as an individualized and creative approach to the discussed issues.
This article is like that. Of course, you can disagree with the authors' claims and the presented concept of The Blue Management, but I really like getting into scientific polemics on a scientific publishing forum. Well, without discussion and clash of concepts and views, there is no progress in science.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thanks for your comments and support in reviewing this manuscript. We did considerable English editing and believe it is much better for a publication.

We understand that we are touching on sensitive points that might be polemic. Discussing this point might be one of the main outcomes of this manuscript. But considering the intense anthropogenic pressure in exploring natural resources, it is important to raise this problem to accelerate restoration efforts.

Thank you again for all your suggestions and for reviewing the manuscript.

Best Regards 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors showed diligence in making revisions that strengthened the manuscript.  This new version will make an acceptable contribution to the Journal.

Decision: Accept