To What Extent Are Cattle Ranching Landholders Willing to Restore Ecosystem Services? Constructing a Micro-Scale PES Scheme in Southern Costa Rica

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REVIEWER COMMENT AND SUGGESTION

AUTHORS REVISION

GENERAL ASPECTS #1

The article is interesting and could make an important contribution, but in its current form it lacks research depth, focusing too much on the case study and failing to reveal its contribution to the advancement of the field.

In order to enhance the contribution of this case study to the advancement of the field on PES scheme, several changes have been made:

1. The micro-scale PES scheme concept has been emphasised. For example, it has been incorporated in the title. This remarkable change aims to capture more accurately the place-based approach which is one of the key advanced aspects of this research (lines 2-4). The inclusion of the verb in gerund tense constructing, pretends to highlight the meaning of an action in progress, the design of a proposal for policy making.

2. The abstract has been completely changed with the aim to explicitly display the main contribution of this case study in the field of PES. The changes are explained below (See Item Abstract).

3. The discussion section has been expanded to address a complete analysis of the main findings and contribution of this research. The changes are explained below (See Item Discussion).     

GENERAL ASPECTS #2

Another shortcoming, given its submission to an international research journal, is the lack of an international dimension in the presentation of the case study, but especially the lack of an external validation of findings.

We have incorporated some features and modifications to enhance both the international dimension of the paper and external validation of findings. Additionally, the paper provides novel concepts to overcome the Costa Rican nationwide PES scheme shortcomings such as spatial targeting approach, multi-level governance and layered payment scheme. All these issues are addressed throughout the text, specifically as follows:

1. Displaying the case study area in an international map (Figure 1, lines 248-259).

2. An international dimension is also reflected in the Introduction when referring to e.g. tropical countries (line 52), Forest Restoration Pact in Brazil (lines 66-67) or developed and developing countries (lines 73, 120).

3. External validation has been undertaken in the Discussion section by contrasting the main findings of this research with remarkable references (see lines 724, 736, 760, 771, 772, 780, 830, 832, 849, 852).

4. New references have been introduced incorporating other research findings in Costa Rica (Pagiola, 2008; Rasch et al., 2021; Garbach  et al., 2012) and novel concepts such as willingness to accept (WTA) payments for providing specific ecosystem services

by eliciting current practice prior to a choice experiment (Vedel et al., 2015) and placed-based approach, layered payments and multi-level governance (Reed et al., 2017). See lines (863, 865, 884,887)

GENERAL ASPECTS #3

The paper has an unclear structure. Theoretical elements are present in the methodology (see section 3.3.1), and other elements are mixed too. This makes the article hard to follow and understand by a research audience. The authors should restructure their paper, grouping all elements in the sections where they belong: (1) an introduction aimed at reviewing the existing literature to reveal the shortcomings (conceptual and/or methodological) in order to develop a theoretical framework for their research, justifying the need for it, concluded by declaring the research goals and stating their novelty and originality; (2) a section presenting all methods and materials (data etc.) used in the analysis; (3) the presentation of the main findings; (4) a discussion of the findings, aimed at stressing out their importance, contribution to the advancement of the field and the limitations of the study and future research directions, and (5) conclusions taking the form of a scientific message targeting a broad research audience.

We have followed the standard structure of papers regarding choice experiment issues. Thus, we have maintained the structure of the paper but including the suggestions received. On the one hand, we have kept section 2, in order to be able to go in depth into the shortcomings of the Costa Rican PES scheme, and thus emphasise the contributions of our paper. Thus, in section 2 we have highlighted such elements and in the discussion section we contrast them with the results of our empirical analysis. On the other hand, in section 3 we set out the methodology employed from a theoretical point of view (section 3.3.1), which we consider methodologically necessary.

Abstract

Although the abstract establishes a clear context, the focus is not scientific and the abstract itself is scarce in useful information. The authors should present a scientific framework for their analysis of their case study, shifting the focus from a presentation of a case study to the contribution of analysing it to the theoretical advancement of the field. They should also elaborate more on the methodology used in the analysis (currently missing), and on the contribution of results to the theoretical advancement of the field.

The abstract has been completely changed with the aim to explicitly display the main contribution of this case study to the PES field. The outline of the abstract is as follows:

•   Lines 21-22: Briefly description of the biophysical problem of the study area.

•   Lines 22-23: The role of the PES as a conservation policy strategy.

•   Lines 24-26: A critical aspect. One of the main shortcomings of the Costa Rican PES scheme.

•   Lines 26-28. The main objective of this research.

•   Lines 28-36: Briefly explanation of the main results highlighting the advanced aspects of governance and layered payment scheme.

Introduction

The introduction ends with a long and useless description of the structure of the article. This is absolutely not necessary and should be removed. An article has an abstract, and its role is to summarize the article. There is no need for summarizing the article again. Instead, the introduction should be more critical; the existing literature is properly reviewed, but only to present the main findings. The authors should take the next step and reveal, in a paragraph preceding the declaration of their research goals, a summary of the shortcomings of the previous studies (ambiguities, lacks, uncertainties etc.), and explain how the current research addresses them, justifying the need for research and emphasizing the novel and original elements of their research.

The description of the article structure has been removed from the Introduction. The introduction has also been synthetized in order to be more critically oriented and to emphasise some particular issues. Specifically, the main goal of the paper (line 112), its methodological contribution (line 113) and novelty (line 122) have been underlined. The introduction section addresses critically the shortcomings of the Costa Rican PES scheme and the mainstream research in this field such as the lack of spatial targeting approach, focus on restoration, estimation of ecosystem services values and land opportunity costs.

On the other hand, section 2 develops the main shortcomings of the Costa Rican nationwide PES scheme and presents the main novel contributions of this research:

·         Lack of additionality and spatial targeting approach (lines 163-170). This research provides a spatial targeting approach.

·         Arbitrary payments (lines 171-179). This papers links payments with WTA estimates and land opportunity costs.

·         Fixed payments (lines 180-191). This paper suggests a novel layered payment scheme.

In the last paragraph of section 2, two local Costa Rican case studies have been included to illustrate to what extent the shortcomings of the nationwide programme have been endogenized.

Figure 1

Figure 1 should be made available to the broad research audience of Sustainability. The authors should keep in their mind that they are not submitting a report to the authorities of Costa Rica, but a research article to a journal with a broad international audience, including people who are not familiar with the geography of Costa Rica. Therefore, the figure should be redesigned in an international context, presenting, using the same map-in-map system, the location of the Claro river sub-watershed in an international context, showing the countries adjacent to Costa Rica.

Figure 1 has been modified according to the suggestion made (lines 248-260).

Discussion

The discussions include only a presentation of the significance of the results, but it fails to include:

(1) a validation of the results, internal (against the study goals) and external (against similar studies carried out elsewhere),

(2) a discussion on the contribution of the study to the theoretical advancement of the field, and

(3) a presentation of the main limitations of the study (conceptual and/or methodological) and possible solutions for overcoming them in the future studies.

The discussion section has been deeply modified to include these three suggested aspects, especially the shortcomings of this study and the topics of further research on the field.

The internal validation and limitations have been incorporated in section 5 and in Conclusions, as reproduced below:

Sub-section 5.1. . In this sense, further research is strongly recommended to expand the GIS-based spatial assessment in the same location to quantify a wider range of ESs (e.g., water availability, biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration). (lines 747-749)

Sub-section 5.2. To determine internal validity, this amount can be contrasted with the estimated land opportunity cost for cattle ranching farmers (about 175,876.14 CRC/ha/year). Considering that the monetary value of the ASC is normally distributed, it is possible to infer with rea-sonable confidence that the observed WTA estimates are within a realistic range. (lines 789-793).

Thus, future research should address the design and testing of alternative methodologies that could contribute to the search for collective decisions by potential beneficiaries, which would result in an efficient use of available public resources. (lines 807-809).

Despite the small sampling size… (lines 810-816).

Conclusions. Regarding the main limitations of this case study:

However, the results must be carefully framed in the current temporal and spatial scales of the studied area and the small size of the surveyed population. Therefore, it is difficult to assume external validation for other sites in Costa Rica.. (Lines 890-893).

As noted above, external validation has been undertaken in the Discussion section by contrasting the main findings of this research and including remarkable references. (see lines 724, 736, 760, 771, 772, 780, 830, 832, 849, 852).

In addition, new references have been introduced in this section to support conceptually the findings of this research (Vedel et al., 2015;  Reed et al., 2017). See lines (832, 849, 852)

ITEM

REVIEWER COMMENT AND SUGGESTION

AUTHORS REVISION

GENERAL ASPECT

The English needs extensive work. The grammar and word choice need work throughout. Perhaps 25 to 50% of the sentences had small errors.

The manuscript has been revised by the professional English Editing Service of MDPI. The revision has included checking the grammar, spelling, punctuation and phrasing of the paper.

MAJOR COMMENTS #1

It was unclear what the percentages refer to i.e. 50% BIO versus 25% water. While other aspects of the paper have a lot of details, this was very unclear.

Those percentages were provided by an expert consultation as it is now stated in the text (lines 352-354). Table 1 shows the percentages that correspond to each level of the attributes.

MAJOR COMMENTS #2

For the GIS analysis is it possible to show some kind of map (even hypothetical map) to help the reader understand what this would look like. Also, I am not quite sure how this would work.

Figure 3 depicts a GIS database analysis, an erosion susceptibility assessment which belongs to a previous research (Pérez-Rubio et al., 2021). As part of an integrated assessment approach, it was generated by employing primary data and by the method of artificial neural networks (lines 283-287).

MAJOR COMMENTS #3

From my understanding, are you suggesting that GOs and NGOs implementing a PES would offer different land holders different payments based on their WTP?

A baseline payment could be provided by the Costa Rican PES scheme and an individualized layered payment could be offered by local or regional NGOs based on the own implementation of different policy scenarios.

In the discussion section: This approach would favour the construction of “networked” or multi-level governance, which refers to the creation of ad hoc horizontal partnerships of institutions and social actors to manage the PES scheme, ideally based on bottom-up, collective decision-making [61]. As an example, an erosion control scheme could be collectively funded by govern-ment institutions, regarding agriculture and livestock production or risk management, and social actors, such as local chambers of producers, in parallel with a scheme targeting local water companies by introducing a tariff to pay for water availability and quality (lines 849-856).

In the conclusion section: . Second, the development of “networked” or multi-level governance could improve access to alternative financial mechanisms to complement the budget-fixed bounds of the nationwide PES programme and play an intermediary role in assuming the expected high direct operational and transaction costs. (Lines 897-902).

MINOR COMMENTS #1

The quality of all the figures are very low. Please ensure they are readable.

The figures have been modified including a better image quality and improving in terms of readability. All the figures are now readable.

MINOR

COMMENTS #2

Figure 1. Would be good to have more details in the figure. i.e. city locations; administrative boundaries.

Figure 1 has been modified including a map of Central America including borders between countries (line 264). However, for the Claro river sub-watershed, the topographic map has been kept to illustrate the complex topography of the mountain ecosystem, so it is just a physical map.

MINOR

COMMENTS #3

Figure 3 appears to be from a previous paper and includes black dots not mentioned in the caption

Figure 3 has been modified including the legend which explains the following (line 310): (i) black dots represent erosion events, and (ii) there are five different levels of erosion by colour from “Very low” (green) to “Very high” (red).

MINOR

COMMENTS #4

Figure 4 is difficult to read. Yet critical to understand

Figure 4 has been modified. It is now clearer and readable (line 391).