Navigating Land Conservation, Utilization, and Market Solutions: Insights from the Lanyang River Watershed, Taiwan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

First of all, it is a coincidence that I had to submit this review on the same day as a 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck Taiwan. I hope all the family members of the authors and respondents are well. I express my condolences to families who lost their loved ones and speedy recovery of the injured. 

The manuscript can be accepted for sustainability after minor revisions.  My review report is below:

Review Report on

Navigating Land Conservation, Utilization, and Market Solutions: Insights from the Lanyang River Watershed, Taiwan

 

The manuscript submitted to Sustainability entitled " Navigating Land Conservation, Utilization, and Market Solutions: Insights from the Lanyang River Watershed, Taiwan," uses a fragile watershed system to evaluate land conservation utilization and market solutions. At this stage, the manuscript is not suitable for publication until several issues in the introduction methods are addressed. In general, substantial trimming of the introduction and discussion is required, and streamlining methods and results is also necessary to better inform the methods and results of the study.

Comments:

In the introduction, the objectives or aims of the manuscript (MS) should be explained only once in the last paragraph. The introduction is slightly long, and two to three paragraphs must be reduced.

Please take care of reference errors throughout the MS.

Questions should not be placed in the main MS. If it is important to keep them, they should be included in the supplementary material.

While adults (18+) were interviewed, the sampling design should have been taken care of. Or equivalent units (aeu) should have been calculated. However, it is okay to include them (all age categories as sample space) so long as adults are interviewed. In future studies, I suggest that the authors take care of household size or population by equivalent units.

Table 2 should be placed right after line # 496. So, two run-on tables can be avoided.

The Methods section should mention the specification and variable definition in logit and tobit models. Only results should be reported in the results section. With this, Table 6 will go to Methods. For other run-on tables, see Tables 7-9. When the results of logit models are reported immediately after Table 7, then the results of Table 8 should be reported, followed by Table 8. This will provide the reader with a better understanding of the Tobit and Logit models. Table 9 is not required, and text can be incorporated into the text. How were these values calculated? Holding all variables at their mean?

 

Do not discuss the results in the conclusion section; just point out the conclusions and implications based on current research. Also, avoid repeating your purpose in the conclusion. Make sure that the abstract and conclusions are standalone parts of MS. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

some minor languages and choices of words

Author Response

Many thanks to the valuable comments from the reviewer.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript involves a survey conducted in three villages in Taiwan to assess local residents’ cognition and value assessment of ecosystem services. The survey involved 450 distributed questionnaires, of which 433 were valid, with a response rate as high as 96.2%. Demographic data shows that the participants’ education levels, occupations, and income levels vary. The main findings include a high willingness to pay for ecosystem services, the economic value estimated using logistic regression and Tobit regression models. In addition, residents have a strong understanding of ecological destruction and support various compensation channels for ecosystem degradation. This study emphasizes the importance of land zoning policies and potential ecosystem service payment schemes in environmental protection work. Overall, this is an interesting and in-depth study that greatly helps us understand and protect ecosystem services. However, there are some issues that need to be further improved before acceptance. 

1. The introduction’s discussion of related theories and concepts is too lengthy and verbose. It is recommended to sort out the core content, summarize concisely, and avoid excessive repetitive narration.

2. The manuscript mentions evaluating local mountain residents’ value cognition of ecosystem services and views on damage compensation through a survey, but it does not explain how to design the questionnaire, the process of choosing questions, and the considerations.

3. Although the manuscript lists some specific survey questions, such as cognition of the value of ecosystem services, willingness to compensate for damage, preference for compensation channels, etc., it does not explain why these indicators were chosen and whether they have relevant literature or theories as support.

4. The phrase “Error! Reference source not found.” appears on multiple lines in the text, such as lines 125, 159, 161, and 916.

5. I don't understand what the title of 4.6 has to do with your content and topic. You only cited other people's literature to explain the broad categories of ecosystem services and their value, without combining your own research to state it.

Author Response

Many thanks to the valuable comments from the reviewer.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article addresses the relationship between people and the environment, their awareness of environmental damage, and their willingness to participate in paying for ecosystem services in an environmentally sensitive region of Taiwan. In its current form, this article is not suitable for publication. It would have been preferable to focus on the substance of the research, i.e. the results of the survey, to explore them in more depth, rather than raising additional issues for which there is no 'evidence' in the form of respondents' answers. There is often repetition of the same content in the article, which is tiresome for the reader and unnecessarily lengthens the article, in addition there is a problem with mixing content between chapters (e.g. description of methodology in Results). There are also many factual errors and shortcomings. I provide detailed comments on the text below.

 

Abstract

L15-as far as I can see, this concept (Anthropocene) has not been accepted as a new geological epoch

L17-instead of "by exploring", which is repeated in this sentence, it would be more reasonable to give "in relation to" or something like that

 

Keywords

L39 - it seems to me that the words "development, utilization, conservation" are too non-specific, too general, they should be narrowed down a bit more in relation to the content of the article

 

Introduction

L52 - same comment to Anthropocene - maybe just add some commentary to the word so that it is not confusing to readers

L62 - long or long time?

L79 - "high mountain areas are protected with forests". - only up to a certain altitude, because above the upper limit of the forest the forests are no longer there

L82-84 - the citation for this information is missing

L95-96 - how are such negative changes possible when it was mentioned earlier that zoning is legally introduced and I understand that such sites should be protected?

L123-125 - technical problem with citations (also L159-161)

L138 - 'Environmental awareness' of whom?

L145 - "a wide range of ecosystem services are recognised" - where? as there are also more general passages in the introduction, not just about LRW, this needs to be made clear in the text when specifically referring to LRW

L147 - item 51 is quoted twice and item 52 is missing

In the last paragraph of the introduction, it would be appropriate to focus more on the objectives of the work and its relevance (why it is potentially important, also from the point of view of the international reader; what practical relevance it has, what it can help with, what it can improve, etc.), while information on how it was done should be presented in the next chapter (Materials and Methods). Additionally, I suggest focusing on the survey, since the results of these field observations were not included by the authors in the article.

 

Materials and Methods

This section is heavily expanded and sometimes it seems that this is not where some of the information should be (by the way, some of it is repeated exactly with the introduction - this should be completely eliminated, it is cumbersome, it gives the impression that the authors think that the reader immediately forgets what he has read a moment before). I propose to organise this section as follows: 2.1. The study site – the Lanyang River Watershed; 2.1.1. Vulnerability of the Study Site (here it is worth adding a map showing the location and boundaries of the LRW); 2.1.2. Long-Term Zoning Laws and Regulatory Policies; 2.1.3. Pressure in the Fringe Area of Nature and Society (without these additional subsections); 2.2. Stakeholders; 2.2.1. Stakeholder and the Framework of Natural and Social Systems; 2.2.2. Hillside Residents and their Roles in Environmental Governance; 2.3. Survey and its analysis (and the current title of this subsection shall be inserted in its text); 2.3.1. Survey; 2.3.2. Statistical analysis

L185-193 - no sources of information included

L194 - in what context is the term 'land reclamation' used here? is it about land drainage? it would be worthwhile to clarify this

L201-206 - this text repeats exactly what is in L79-82, delete. Instead, this subsection could be used to add some examples of solutions in the cited legislation to secure LRW

L221-228 - this text repeats exactly the same as what is in L85-90, drop this part (whole subsection)

L239-241 - what pressure are the authors thinking of? are these mines being developed within the boundaries of "the ecosystem well protected by the land zoning policy"? do not the legislation work? please explain this in detail in the text

L261 - it seems to me that it would have been better to put this part of the sentence this way (at least that is how I understood the authors' intention): "resulting in potential issues related TO THE NEED to reduce fertiliser pollution...".

L268 - please give examples of such ecosystem services

L271-275 - one could consider whether to move this to another subsection (2.2. Stakeholders) - e.g. where L327 is currently, or at the beginning of the subsection "Hillside Residents and their Roles in Environmental Governance"

L277-281 - no such "loose" text is done - please separate this and weave it into the relevant subsections

L283 - ...proposed INVESTIGATION/DETERMINATION/EXPLORATION OF (?) the dynamics?

L286-288 - "the coevolutionary system of nature and society to analyse the interaction of key variables in the socio-economic system, elucidating the coevolution of ecological and social systems". - please simplify this, as the beginning and end of this passage are repeated

L302 - is another repetition of the phrase "The framework proposed by Ostrom [38,39]" needed here, since it was in the previous sentence?

Subsection "Hillside Residents and their Roles in Environmental Governance" - since this land is also used by the mine owners, having a strong influence on the area, shouldn't they also be considered an interest group? Isn't there a law in Taiwan that says that the company that caused the environmental damage should bear the consequences by repairing the damage? In addition: there is no reference in this subsection to the roles of the hillside residents in environmental governance. Can these residents take part in any public consultations of land-use plans, or can they propose any areas for protection, or can they influence the shape of the law on the designation of use zones? Please complete this section - how do they practically influence environmental governance.

L363 - please recall the names of these three cities

L376-377 - this was poorly described in the Introduction. So how is this work different from these others? what does it bring that is new? this should be presented at the end of the Introduction. In addition, the commented passage lacks citations

L379 - twice "also"

L380-384 - heavy and incomprehensible sentence construction; "is cross-affirmed by interaction processes between local communities and nearby ecosystems" - what specifically is meant here; by what is this implemented?

L385 - "the actual observations" - by whom conducted? with what methods? what specifically is the subject of these observations? moreover, no results of these observations are presented in the Results chapter

L393-395 - when was this study carried out?

L406 - not first, by second (first is about the respondent)

L415 - it is worth making a footnote (or explaining it in the text) where this is converted into USD (readers will get a better idea of this) and commenting on how big this amount is for Taiwanese (what proportion of their average income). Otherwise, it is difficult for the reader to judge whether these amounts involve any sacrifice or whether they do not make much of a difference

L419 - it was an open-ended, not close-ended question

L423 - 'forest' is stated here, and in the following questions it is not, it is generally 'ecosystem services' - how were respondents supposed to know it was about forest?; in the same line there is "four", meanwhile the answer options are five

L441-442 - was this question about how specifically the respondent himself was supposed to compensate for the ecological damage or someone else, but in the opinion of this respondent? it matters (whether I pay myself or someone else is supposed to do it), and unfortunately this context is not apparent from the question asked. It is worth bearing in mind that hillside residents themselves can also cause some environmental damage

448-451 - these two sentences repeat almost the same thing

The Survey subsection should include demographic data about the respondents (i.e. from the current subsection 3.1 all about 'demographic characteristics' - after all, this is not a substantive score, just information to determine what factors about the people themselves influenced their responses. There should also be information in this subsection on how it was determined which of these parameters was statistically significant for the answers given.

 

Results

L474-475 - completely redundant sentence

From the current subsection 3.1 only the Ecosystem Interaction History of the Hillside Respondents should remain in the results, the rest should be moved to the description of the survey in the Materials and Methods chapter

L483-502 - this is an exact repetition of the data from Tables 1-2, to be removed (the same data are not repeated). At most, there can be a generalised commentary on the tables in the text.

Table 2 - family income - and if someone had 50, should they choose the 30-50 range or 50-100?

Table 3 - city streets - it looks like they are homeless and living on the street. Wouldn't it be better to give main city or city centre?

L516-519 - redundant part of the sentence, repeats what was at the beginning of the sentence. The rest of the paragraph repeats exactly the data from Table 4, also redundant. You could rather give percentages in the description

Subsection 3.3 - move all technical/methodological information to the methodology (subsection Statistical analysis). Since the authors stated that "The gender, occupation, and age of the respondents did not show statistical significance", they must have investigated this, so these variables should be placed in the methodology among those controlled. On the other hand, the text I have quoted here should be in the results, as should the means and standard deviations from Table 6. I would also remind you that the tables should be where they were first cited

L542 - it says "either" and the continuation of the construction in the form of "or" is missing

Formula 1 - there should be an explanation of all the components used under it, not just ei. What influenced the selection of the components of this formula, how did it come about? (the same comment applies to the formula in L603)

L557 - it mentions Table 8 and was previously Table 6, Table 7 is lost somewhere - tables should be quoted chronologically, here apparently there has been a shift in the numbering of the tables in the text as the descriptions do not match the actual tables, needs to be corrected throughout the text

L560 and further in the text - what 'rural residence'? it was previously referred to 'outskirts', not rural areas

L561-562 and further in the text - after all, nothing like this was studied (see Table 3), where did the authors get this?

L564-569 - what about the level of education?

L570 - this sentence is repeated from L562-563

L580 - this formula should also be extracted, like formula (1)

L593-599 - I am curious to know what was the highest amount proposed by the respondents....

Table 6 - the first two columns should be in the methodology, while the first, third and fourth columns should be in the results. Definition of Y - if there are inverted commas, it means quoting verbatim from the survey, so it should rather be "I'm willing to pay....". RURAL - this term is not consistent with the one used for the first time; it should rather be the former term, as the respondents were, after all, exclusively urban residents! STAY - this was not in the survey

Table 9 - unnecessary, these data are given in the text

Subsection 3.4 - why no reference to demographics here - how did a particular element of the respondent's profile affect his/her responses?

L639-654 - no such suspended text is done. Please divide it (without repetition!) between relevant subsections, including methodology (again, some of the information is methodology)

L645 - four channels or five? see Page 10

L657 - there is no information in the methodology that this part of the survey referred to forests, there is no word 'forest' in the wording for respondents

L678-680 - to be deleted, this is described in the next paragraph

L693 - other than what?

 

Discussion

The discussion comments very poorly on the specific results presented in Results, e.g. not a word about payment channels - then why was this studied?

L718-719 - similar to learning about people's attitudes towards the environment and their willingness to actively engage in its protection

L720-731 - this whole paragraph is generalities, please be specific about your interpretation and comment on the research conducted, based on literature/sources of information

L733-737 - nothing like this was researched by the authors, there were no such statements/questions in the survey (see Results)

L738-739 - and what about mining and watermelons?

L741-749 - no citations

L750 - same as in L733

L750-754 - same as in L745-746

L754-759 - nothing like this was investigated by the authors, such statements/questions were not in the survey (see Results)

Subsection 4.3 - no citations, largely a repetition of results

769-770 - you could also have asked directly in the survey how they rated land zoning

L779-781- this repeats content from subsection 4.2

Subsection 4.4 - very weak link to the results obtained, it is not clear whether these amounts chosen or proposed by respondents are large, sufficient, what they indicate. The authors additionally state: "However, this is not the story of the LRW, which is a well-governed ecosystem as a result of forest conservation policy and land zoning regulation", so the question arises as to why they asked this at all (as further on, about damage compensation - L871-874)

L784 and further - ecology is a scientific field, how can it be "degraded and destroyed"?

L785-788 - this explanation of the concept should be in the introduction, not just at the very end of the article

L832-833- this is not clear from the description of the results, the survey

L833-845- does this relate to the LRW as there is no PES? as it is not clear how this relates to the survey, despite this first sentence in the paragraph. No citations to this text

L846 - "The present study agrees" - how can the thing agree? rather man (i.e. the authors of the article)

L886-887 - this is the same as in L865-867

L901-904 - perhaps it would be worth doing some outreach to make residents more aware (for the future) of such solutions?

L911 - misquote 5050, in L914 - 51,51, L916-918 - error

L922-937 - weak link to survey results

L937-948 - content repeated (text about Libya - as many as three times!?), relevance to survey?

 

Conclusions

A lot of sentence pieces are a faithful copy of earlier texts

L977-978 - due to... - this was not asked of respondents, why the certainty?

L984-986 - the purpose was worded differently in the introduction

Author Response

Many thanks to the valuable comments from the reviewer.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript submitted for review describes interesting and relevant work. The topic of land use is of great practical importance. I support the authors' basin approach, data collection in a sociological manner, and quantitative modeling using logistic regression. The research methods are well described, the results are well presented, and the conclusions appear reasonable. I think the article can be accepted for publication.

Author Response

Many thanks to the valuable comments from the reviewer.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I find this study interesting. However, there are some issues that must be resolved before I can recommend publication.

Most importantly, there is the “BID” price problem.  The paper notes that the value in the closed-ended question influenced the responses in the open-ended question.  However, there does not appear to be any discussion how this bias was handled or what difference it may have made in the open-ended results. Without such a resolution, I am worried that those results have limited (if any) meaning.  In other words, while this does not invalidate all the findings, it does mean there needs to be extra explanations.

Related to this, the discussion of the mode for the Likert-scale questions on response opinions seems unusual. This is particularly true for the second question on Table 11: You have a deep understanding of ecosystem compensation payments. There was only one response difference between the “3” and the “4” – and the “4” response was the mode for the other three questions under the category of “Opinions on ecological damage compensation payment.”  Thus, the difference does not appear to warrant the conclusion made.

Also, it is not clear how to transform these results into a “warning sign” (as noted on Line 724).

There are also technical matters that need to be addressed. The concept of PES is introduced as a subsidy payment in the results discussion (Line 785). I would have expected such an seemingly important concept to have been defined earlier – including what the acronym means (or what the actual name is if PES is not an acronym).

The results from Tables 2, 3, 4, and 5 do not need to be fully discussed in the text. This is especially true with the demographics (Section 3.1 for Tables 2 and 3) where virtually everything from the table is repeated in the text. The paragraph summaries should note the important – and surprising – findings and let the tables provide the full data.

Related to tables, it does not appear any reference to Table 7 (Logit Model Results) appears in the text.

Additionally, the references need to be “cleaned up.” Three times, the paper shows “Missing References” (Lines 123-125; Lines 159-161; and Lines 916-917).  Several references listed do not appear in the text (e.g., [31], [41], [52].)  And at least one reference number is wrong – Lin et al. is [35] (not [34] as noted on Line 228).

Finally, some style notes – which are generally going to be for you to make as authors. I personally like lto see acronyms spelled out at the beginning of a section when they are specifically defined for the paper (e.g., LRW at Line 178). Most translations show Slopeland to be one word (see the listing for SCAUT at Line 212). Finally, it might be wise to include a note about the currency equivalent for the New Taiwan Dollar. Currently, 100,000,000 (100 million) NTW is about $312,000 USD or €288,500 Euro. While not an insignificant sum, it is a much smaller order of magnitude different from what might be implied by the text.

Author Response

Many thanks to the valuable comments from the reviewer.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

As the pdf sent to me still contains errors (e.g. redundant L205-219, etc.) and is different from the Word file of the same title, my review refers to the Word file (line numbering according to simple tracking of adjoining changes, although here too not all changes have been highlighted by the authors, making the review very difficult). I provide detailed comments on the text below.

 

Introduction

L63 – „these threats” – which threats?

L89-92 - it is still not explained how such negative developments are possible, when it was previously mentioned that zoning is legally introduced and I understand that such sites should be protected? And further on in the text it is even stated that "the LRW exemplifies cautious and prudent development through careful land planning and prudent development regulation"....

L126-136 - in the previous version the concept of 'compensation' was explained, here it is missing

L127-129 - once the abbreviation ESP is used, then PES - please be consistent

 

Materials and Methods

Subsection 2.1.3 - there is still a lot of repetition of the same information here, please eliminate this completely and organise the text by topics (e.g.: all about mining; all about cultivation; all about people's awareness and attitudes to these problems). Furthermore, it is still not explained how it is possible that there is zoning and yet there are such dangers and damage? Someone not following the law? Any bribes? Isn't there a law in Taiwan that says to bear the consequences by repairing the environmental damage by the company that caused the damage?

L251-253 - this information (two sentences) should be moved to the beginning of subsection 2.2.3

L255-256 - is this the correct sentence?

L256 - "The conservation for hillside forests" or "of hillside forests"?

L259 - I would rather suggest plural (Stakeholders)

L261 - …proposed INVESTIGATION? DETERMINATION? EXPLORATION OF? the dynamics….

Subsection "Hillside Residents and their Roles in Environmental Governance" - despite the authors' declarations, this text has not been completed with the information I asked for in the review. If this land is also used by the mine owners, with a strong influence on the area, why were they not recognised as an interest group? This would need to be explained. There is also no specific reference to the roles of the hillside residents in environmental governance. Can these residents take part in any public consultations of land-use plans, or can they propose any areas for protection, or can they influence the shape of the law on the designation of use zones? Please complete this section - how do they practically influence environmental governance. Instead, remove repetitive information - e.g. a large part of the second and fourth paragraphs are about the same thing, this is an artificial lengthening of the text

L305 - 'Building on previous research' - citations should be added here

L355-357 - although I have pointed this out before, still a summary of the main findings of these other studies is not presented in the Introduction. It is still an open question, so how is this work different from these others? what does it contribute that is new? this should be presented at the end of the Introduction

L362-363 - can the authors cite any specific publications here?

L365-366 - errors in the sentence

L368 - "and residential area: urban or rural" is further down in the text as part of the Ecosystem Interaction History, not demographic characteristics - this is inconsistent. In contrast, here there should be information on income and family, which the authors did not mention at all in this paragraph

L370 - undefined end of sentence

L389 - shouldn't it rather be Ecosystem services' valuation....?

L406 - close together is 'offered' and 'offer', it sounds wrong (it is still in L409). If any publications were used in this paragraph, please cite them

L435-439, L466-469 - wrong font

L466 - should be "Table"

L469 - "The resident education level was generally high". - redundant, this is already in the next sentence. The last sentence in the paragraph is also redundant as it repeats data from Table 2

L478-479 - "The gender, occupation, and age of the respondents did not show statistical significance in the regression models" - it would be appropriate to add here how this statistical significance was checked

Table 3 - definition of Y - if there are inverted commas, it means that this is a verbatim quote from the survey, so it should rather be "I'm willing to pay...." (the respondent was making a statement about himself, not someone)

 

Results

L486-491 - to be removed, after all it was in the methodology, moreover the texts in this paragraph are repeated, well everyone knows that in Results the results of the research are presented....

L496 - "The majority of them reside in rural areas". - not true, because in urban areas. The continuation of this sentence repeats data from the table, it is to be removed

L498 - does not repeat the exact same data (table vs text)

Table 4 - not clear what the unit of stay duration is (h/day? h/month?)

L508 - "with 87, 86, 87, 86, and 87, respondents, respectively" - redundant, this is visible in the table. The next sentence has some construction problem

Table 5 - redundant Note (can be seen in the table and is also earlier in the text)

L581 - twice the word donation

L583-589 - superfluous, repeats what comes before and what comes after

L590 - add here a reference to Table 9

L598-605 - information on the largest amount proposed was missing here - despite the authors' declaration, I did not find it in the revised version of the article

Between L606-609 - blank table to be deleted

Subsection 3.3 - these are statements rather than questions

L636 - "they have a DEEP understanding of ecosystem compensation payments". - this is in some contradiction with the rest of the sentence

L639-646 - most of the sentences are for deletion, repeating themselves or repeating Table 11. Please leave sentence 2 and attach the following paragraph to it

Table 12 - remove the blank part

 

Discussion

The discussion still comments very poorly on the specific results presented in Results, is superficial, and in places refers to issues not explored by the authors, such as people's attitudes to the idea of land zoning. From the reader's perspective, it looks as if the authors have preconceived the idea that land zoning is good and, regardless of the topic of the research and its results, they will repeat this thesis.

Subsections 4.1-4.3 - there are no references to the literature, to other studies - meanwhile this is after all a discussion of the results! (although overall in subsections 4.1-4.2 there are no references to the authors' specific results at all)

L683 - end of the first sentence – „as well as learning about people's attitudes towards the environment and their willingness to actively engage in its protection”

L691-695 - it should be noted, however, that the majority of people would not want to pay (Table 5), i.e. it should be considered that people do not feel too much pressure and threat to ecosystems, it is not alarming to them....

L700-704 - despite the authors' declaration, this text was not removed (this was not investigated by the authors).

L704-706 - and what about mining and watermelons? I still don't see specific links of further text in this subsection to the survey results. After all, the survey respondents were not evaluating the functioning of land zoning. Perhaps I don't understand something, then please refer to the specific questions of the survey in this text so that this connection starts to become apparent. The same applies to the previous subsection

Post section 4.3 - still no quotes/ broader commentary and it is largely a repetition of results

722-723 - you could also ask directly in the survey how people rate land zoning

L730-731 - probably doesn't quite work since there are these threats from mining and watermelons

Subsection 4.4 - still very weak link to results obtained, not clear if these sums chosen or proposed by respondents are large, sufficient, what they indicate. Little commentary, few citations

L753 - ecology is a scientific discipline, how can it be 'degraded and destroyed'?

L767-771 - maybe some kind of information campaign to make residents more aware (for the future) of such solutions?

Subsection 4.6 - how do the authors' findings relate to these other studies?

Author Response

We appreciate the valuable comments made by the reviewer, and all the suggestions are thoroughly considered and revised accordingly.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper is markedly improved.  You have explained the thought process behind how the "BID" price questions were structured. You have improved the quality of the presentation by adding explanations where needed as well as removing unnecessary verbiage. And you have included the missing citations. 

 

Author Response

We appreciate the valuable comments made by the reviewer.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I provide detailed comments on the text below.

 

Introduction

L89-96 - this paragraph is unnecessary here, exactly the same thing is described in chapter 2.1.3 and there it is enough

L156-158 - I think the construction of this sentence needs to be improved. How is this study different from the others? It needs to be stated here, otherwise it is not clear why another (your) study was conducted.... This is crucial to demonstrate the point and need for this article.

 

Materials and Methods

Subsection 2.1.3 - there is still chaos here, please organise the text by topics. Combine the first sentence with the second paragraph, and move the second sentence further into the paragraph on population awareness and conflicts. After this introductory paragraph about regulation, describe mining (development, threats); then cultivation (development, threats); then everything about people's awareness and attitudes to these problems. That is, move paragraph L233-237 and L250-252 further in this subsection

L252-261 - move to subsection 2.2.2!

L279-286 - delete as this is pasted further on! (from L348)

L286-287 - mess with the title of the subsection

L351 - is the word 'compromise' used correctly here?

L356-358 - make these two sentences one, eliminating repetition

L362-365 - this paragraph fits better at the end of subsection 2.2.2

L395-397 - this sentence still makes no sense and is poorly constructed. What attributes of the forest? probably more like of the people who took part in the survey

L389 - I would rather use the plural (services) as there are many of them

L467-471, L498-501 - still wrong font (italics)

 

Results

L527 – evidenced… evidence…

L542-543 - there is still some problem with the sentence construction

L636 - add after the word value "of the point estimates" so that there is no doubt which value is meant

L670-671 - redundant first sentence in this paragraph, after all this whole subsection describes the results from Table 11

 

Discussion

Subsection 4.2 - why didn't the authors find any link to the results obtained? after all, it can be seen that e.g. the priorities of the local community as presented in Table 10 can be an important argument for further land zoning decisions - after all, forest and ecosystem services are more important to them than development and income. Oh, I see that this is described in the next subsection (4.3). In fact, these contents connect and complement each other so much that I would suggest making these two subsections into one subsection, with coherent content - weaving the individual paragraphs from 4.3 into 4.2. Similarly, I would combine subsections 4.4, 4.5 and 4.6 giving one title (the one from 4.5), as they are strongly linked and too artificially separated

L769-778 - this is very vague, please link it more to specific research findings. As I have written before (and twice before), it is not clear whether these amounts chosen or proposed by respondents are large, sufficient, what do they indicate?

L800-801 - problem with sentence construction

L814 - rather services than service

L820-823, 826-827 - check the construction of these sentences

Author Response

The authors appreciate the valuable comments made by the reviewer, and all the suggestions are thoroughly considered and revised accordingly.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 4

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In the pdf document I received for review, there are no passages highlighted in blue, and I wonder if I received the correct, final version of the article, as there are places where the authors wrote in the coverletter that they had corrected them, meanwhile they are the same as before, and there is also a lot of undeleted text that was simultaneously pasted elsewhere. Below are my detailed comments on the text.

 

Abstract

Please make sure that it corresponds to the current version of the article

 

Materials and Methods

L220-221 move to subsection 2.2.2, it will fit better there

L230-232 - delete sentence (it is also pasted further in the text, in a good place)

L232-236 and L251-259 - delete, as this is moved to subsection 2.2.2

L276-277 - this sentence is quite similar to the next one, I propose to make them one sentence eliminating repetition of content

L371-374 - delete, this is a repetition of earlier text (L353-356)

 

Results

L554-555 - there is still some problem with the sentence construction (I think it is enough to remove 'that')

L670-671 - redundant sentence, after all this whole subsection describes the results from Table 11

 

Discussion

L802-811 - I suggest moving to the beginning of subsection 4.3, and adding "especially" in the current L763

L797-798, L818-821, 824-825 - there are still problems with sentence construction

Author Response

The authors appreciate the valuable comments made by the reviewer, and all the suggestions are thoroughly considered and revised accordingly. Thank you so much.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf