A Review of Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development in Madagascar
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
A review of environmental protection and sustainable development in Madagascar
The authors have attempted to discuss the achievements of the sustainable development target by Madagascar with special emphasis on environmental issues. The paper reaffirmed the nexus of poverty and the environment. The review is timely and important, particularly for setting the development target. The authors have claimed several issues related to environmental issues and poverty in Madagascar. Nevertheless, they failed to provide evidence or references for most of the argument. I suggest improving the presentation using relevant literature, evidence, data, and statistics and acknowledging them correctly. For instance, there are plenty of studies about slash-and-burn and the environment. The urban issues, water pollution, etc are more general. The authors also haven’t referred to Figures and Tables correctly in some places. Another caveat I noticed in this review is little comparison with the global context. Again, a proper review of the literature will fix this issue. Finally, what are the causes or reasons for directing the policies in the wrong way? The authors need to some evidence regarding this as well.
Author Response
Dear Sir, Madam,
We appreciate the positive assessment of our work and thank the Reviewer for having suggested some important points. Some revisions were made accordingly.
Please find attached our response.
Best regards,
RAKOTOARIMANANA Zy Harifidy
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper is an interesting conversation on the environmental protection policies enacted in Madagascar and their efficiency. It aims at suggesting improvements in line with the challenges the country is facing by reviewing the indicators provided by the UN SDGs.
Although this paper is discussing a widely discussed topic, the case area is, in my perspective, not well documented yet, and the approach used here could have enlightened the readers through interdisciplinary perspectives. However, these connections are only indirectly suggested instead of being used. I can make a few suggestions as to how it could be improved in my opinion:
- There is no research question in the abstract or in the introduction to explain what the paper is going to do and why, or what research gap it is going to fill.
- You do not explain your methodology either. What data did you use and why, where they are coming from and how they are going to help you solve the research question.
- I am not sure why and how you divided sections 2.1 and 2.2 considering their respective sizes and topics. In 2.2 you are switching from one theme to another without transition or much explanation. It might be better to subdivide in a more meaningful way, for instance with international/legal perspectives, origin and themes of UN ranking system, water/sanitation etc. These are not binding recommendations, but suggestions to improve the narrative and transitions between topics. For instance, you talk about how important it is to tackle climate change as communities rely on local resources, and immediately after, within the same paragraph, you switch to SDG5 and 8 and the proportion of women in the population.
- You present the environmental concept in section 2.1 without necessarily giving the full extent of what the texts entail on this conception. Even though it is in the short summary you make of the Stockholm Declaration you are not explaining that this text, like all the others, still really links environmental protection and sustainable development to economic growth. Right from 1972, governments in the Stockholm Declaration were already mentioning that “there was also a general agreement that a philosophy of “no growth” was absolutely unacceptable” (Chapt7, paragraphs 37 and 44). This priority given to economic growth while talking about renewable resources and future generations seems paradoxical and was set in stone really early on. This comment relates to my last comment on your conclusion, to give you a potential hint at how you could approach the question.
- What is the point of tables 2 and 3? Why did you pick these laws related to environmental concerns specifically and why do they matter? How does this relate to the argument you are trying to make? Is there a link between the table 2 and 3 that you should make considering that most of the national regulations you are mentioning start in the 1990s, while Madagascar was part of international agreements on the protection of the environment since 1966? There should be more to the legal framework than just mentioning the EIA and laws and treaties Madagascar implemented, and their role in efficiently protecting the environment or enforcing national environmental programs.
- p7. line 227. the Stockholm conference of 1972?
- Line 249: You should explain what this MECIE decree is, when it was enacted, and why it was considered a success beyond just implementing the EIA.
- Line 269-270: the end of the sentence is not clear. What are you trying to say?
- Paragraph line 300 lacks a few references.
- As someone who does not know the effects of this practice, and considering the multidisciplinary perspective of this journal, you should explain what slash-and-burn agriculture is and why it is so detrimental to the environment.
- Some of your recommendations in section 5 are general, such as 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.5. You should elaborate more on these strategies and how/why they are going to solve Madagascar’s issues. Maybe also relate them to the SDGs you mentioned at the beginning when you will explain how they can contribute to the SDGs.
- In your conclusion, referring to the Rio summit of 1992 and the summit of Johannesburg of 2002 as “positive signs that serious efforts are being made in the management of multilateral environmental agreements” while talking about sustaining growth is a bit problematic in my opinion. These references to international efforts, although real achievements in international environmental protection, are a bit outdated, and recent examples demonstrate the difficulty to push everyone in the same direction when it comes to sustainable development and environmental protection. In the end, it still greatly relies on individual/national initiatives. As for the notion of economic growth, it seems increasingly incompatible, in the literature and academic debates, with sustainable development and the use of resources, or intergenerational justice.
I hope these few comments can help you better define your topic and improve the quality of this paper on an underinvestigated case and interdisciplinary approach.
Author Response
Dear Sir, Madam,
We thank the reviewer and appreciate your detailed and kind consideration of our manuscript. We have done our best to revise the structure and add the information suggested.
Please find attached our response.
Best regards,
RAKOTOARIMANANA Zy Harifidy
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for the improvements and your explanations.
As it stands, the review seems to be all right for me. There are a few final modifications that you may and should consider (especially for line 91, it important to modify it during the proofreading), but these are minimal suggestions that should not take you more than a few minutes:
- Line 91: "No growth was stated as unacceptable". You should also use your own terms rather than taking what I proposed as the unwavering truth. You are also the experts; you can formulate these with your own words.
- Line 103: I think there is a missing word here: “to use natural resources in a manner is vital”
- Line 249-250: There is a mistake here: “The JIRAMA should be provide safe and affordable drinking water to the Malagasy people.”
- Line 361-362 remains unclear. I was mainly talking about the part “and the fact that the degradation of their environment, making further impoverishes their survival even more difficult and uncertain [13]”. Maybe final proofreading can solve this issue.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for the extremely helpful comments provided for our paper.
We revised line 91.
It stated that a lack of progress is unacceptable.
- Line 103: I think there is a missing word here: “to use natural resources in a manner is vital”.
Response: A revision was made.
For that, it is vital to acquire the knowledge to maintain and enhance the ability to use natural resources in order to ensure the preservation of species and ecosystems for the benefit of present and future generations.
- Line 249-250: There is a mistake here: “The JIRAMA should be provide safe and affordable drinking water to the Malagasy people.”
Response: The JIRAMA should provide safe and affordable drinking water to the Malagasy people.”
- Line 361-362 remains unclear. I was mainly talking about the part “and the fact that the degradation of their environment, making further impoverishes their survival even more difficult and uncertain [13]”. Maybe final proofreading can solve this issue.
Response:
Poor people are forced to use excessive environmental resources to survive. Indeed, the degradation of their environment makes their survival even more difficult and further impoverishes them [13].
Best regards,
RAKOTOARIMANANA Zy Harifidy
