Monetary Valuation of Protected Wild Animal Species as a Contingent Assessment in North Sulawesi, Indonesia
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript is a good start to better understanding the non-market valuation of protected wild animal species in Indonesia. However, the author needs to make improvements to the manuscript in order for this to be suitable for publication in MDPI Sustainability. I would be willing to continue to review this manuscript for continuous improvement after the author has made the following TEN substantive edits as well as minor line-number specific edits:
1) Please throughout the manuscript include valuations in both US $ and Indonesian currency (IDR) making sure the reader is aware of when this currency conversion was done and what was the exchange rate at the time.
2) Please use the formatting option where words are automatically spaced to allow full-left and full-right justification. You have broken up words with hyphens and the problem with this is that it requires constant updating as you edit the manuscript (and if this gets accepted for publication, the page proof editor having to do a lot of laborious editing).
3) Please do not use “-” to break up parts of sentences. If you are using these, then this indicates that the sentences are run-on sentences. Please use two shorter sentences to improve understanding.
4) When you use abbreviations (e.g., DCCVM, WTP, CVM, etc.) please fully define this at the first mention in EACH section (e.g., Introduction, Methods, Results, etc.) so it is clear what these stand for.
5) Please provide the reader a clearer idea of the distinction between “stated preferences” and “revealed preferences” as they pertain to your research. These are economic terminology that needs to be introduced for WTP methods since your audience in a cross-disciplinary journal are not just natural resource economists.
6) Please include Figure 1 as a land cover map of North Sulawesi with a smaller inset map of the rest of Indonesia with a north arrow, distance scale in kilometers, and a legend for land cover types (if possible include agriculture as one of those land cover types). This will fit in nicely with the writing on L183-186. Ideally you would generate this map on your own in ArcGIS (open source). It will provide readers with a geographical context of the extent of natural habitat in this area (contrasted to oil palm plantations for example in other regions in Indonesia).
7) Tables need to have better data organization and formatting.
8) Table 1 and associated writing should be in the Results section, not the Methods section.
9) Your “3. Results and Discussion” section has NO discussion. Please add a separate section “4. Discussion.” The Discussion section should have two sections:
a. Expand on the contrasts and linkages between your results and results of prior literature. You do not compare and contrast your results to similar studies in the literature.
b. Discussing major themes or limitations to the implications of your research results specifically as they pertain to sustainability. Sustainability is defined as economics, environment, and community. Your research here focused on improving understanding of the non-market valuation of protected wild animals in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Is there any source(s) indicating what the black market valuation(s) are like for these animals and if available, how does this compare to your non-market valuation results? In the aggregate, do your results suggest that there is sufficient WTP from locals to pay for preservation and conservation of species? What are the broader sustainability implications of your results? Do tourists have higher valuation of protected wild animals based on the literature? If eco-tourism is used to cover shortfalls in local funding, are there environmental and community tradeoffs to doing so? I am providing some examples of where you need to go with adding discussion. Please focus on what is best after discussion with all co-authors on the manuscript. Also while expanding this section, also please think about the major limitations to your analysis and include this in the writing in this part of the manuscript.
10) The References formatting is not consistently correct for MDPI journals, particularly the need to abbreviate journal names (e.g., Ecol. Econ.) which you can find via web search or journal web site. The year is in bold and follows the journal name and then a comma. The volume (issue) are in italics followed by a comma and then the page number range. You also need to include the DOI link for cross referencing. Only if the reference is a weblink do you need to include the access date.
Specific Line Number of Manuscript Figure/Table comments (note that requested change of word(s) in quotations where NO edits need to be made for writing before/after each “…”):
L2-3 – Please improve the title as “valuation” is used twice which is redundant and most readers are not aware that North Sulawesi is in Indonesia
L45 – No period and not a complete sentence…collectively do what exactly?
L148 – Online surveys of what exactly?
L148-149 – Change to “1)” and “2)” format
L165-177 – Combine into ONE paragraph
L222-223 – Please in Table 1 write out fully what the variables are
L238-249 – Combine into ONE paragraph
L250 – Change to“3. Results”
L265-279 – Combine into ONE paragraph
Author Response
Dear Editors and Reviewer 1,
Thank you very much for your letter and for the reviewer comments concerning our manuscript titled ”Monetary valuation of protected wild animal species as a contingent valuation study in North Sulawesi” (ID: 1812222). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper getting better, as well as the important guiding significance to our research. We have studied comments carefully and have made corrections which we hope will meet with approval.
The main corrections in the paper and the responses to the reviewer’s comments are attached file that we submitted separately.
Special thanks to you for your good comments.
We appreciate for Editors/Reviewer’s warm work earnestly and hope that the correction will meet with approval. If there are still things that need to be addressed, we are very open to receiving comments from you on the perfection of our paper, please feel free to contact us.
Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions. We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.
Best regards,
Jerry Mauri
Huang Ying Li
Jun Harbi
Nathan J. Roberts
Reviewer 2 Report
Overall, it is a well-written research paper, and I support its publication with minor improvements.
This study addresses a timely and exciting topic. In particular, this study aims to calculate the monetary value of protected wild animal species by estimating the willingness to pay for them – a proxy for the ecosystem services they provide in forest ecosystems. This assessment reported in this study is not intended to obtain the trade value of protected wild animals for trading but to obtain the monetary value as the aggregate price of existing forest resource assets.
Here are some minor comments:
Are there any specific reasons for estimating three monetary values in different currencies? Two monetary valuations are given in IDR, and one valuation is given in USD. Further, the standard deviation along with the mean values make more sense, if possible, to present.
I might be missing something. However, I could not find the justification for the valuation method. Several valuation methods estimate a wide range of items, products, and entities. Do you think that it is the best valuation technique? The willingness to pay in a specific area is highly affected by the economic factors of that region. Have you thought about those controls? Has the existing literature ever talked about applying any capital budgeting technique concepts in such a type of monetary valuation?
Is there any formatting issue in questions 2, 4 and 5? The reader might be lost in evaluating the responses to these questions. I could not find any literature support in the paper's discussion section. Did you compare the mean values of your study with other valuations?
Author Response
Dear Editors and Reviewer 2,
Thank you very much for your letter and for the reviewer comments concerning our manuscript titled ”Monetary valuation of protected wild animal species as a contingent valuation study in North Sulawesi” (ID: 1812222). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper getting better, as well as the important guiding significance to our research. We have studied comments carefully and have made corrections which we hope will meet with approval.
The main corrections in the paper and the responses to the reviewer’s comments are attached file that we submitted separately.
Special thanks to you for your good comments.
We appreciate for Editors/Reviewer’s warm work earnestly and hope that the correction will meet with approval. If there are still things that need to be addressed, we are very open to receiving comments from you on the perfection of our paper, please feel free to contact us.
Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions. We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.
Best regards,
Jerry Mauri
Huang Ying Li
Jun Harbi
Nathan J. Roberts
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript is a good start to better understanding the non-market valuation of protected wild animal species in Indonesia. The author has made improvements to the manuscript so that it is suitable for publication in MDPI Sustainability. The author just has to make the following THREE substantive edits as well as the following minor line-number specific edits prior to page proof editing:
1) Change period (.) and (,) specifications for currency and change “USD” to US$ making sure to leave a space between that and the value number so it is consistent with IDR. Note that MDPI journals ask you NOT to use a comma to separate thousands place for 4 digit numbers (only 5 digit numbers and larger). So for example, you need to change L25-27 end of sentence to “…was 1801.87 IDR (US$ 124.77), 835.67 IDR (US$ 57.70) for protected bird species, and 819.7 IDR (US$ 56.63) for protected reptiles.”
2) Science is by definition “positive” stating things as they are rather than “normative” which is based on opinion. For example on L46, the sentence, “This is, of course, what we collectively want [4-7].” is your personal opinion since not all people on Earth agree with this statement. So please change the end of the paragraph on L45-46 to “required in theory and practice in order to guide society toward a more sustainable future [4-7].” Please carefully review other parts of the manuscript for any situations where you use “normative” language. You can easily lose credibility as a scientist if you do this. It is not your job as a scientist to give opinion, rather leave that for journalists.
3) Only use semi-colons (;) to separate full sentences that you want to link in flow (e.g., L235). Otherwise use commas (,).
Specific Line Number of Manuscript Figure/Table comments (note that requested change of word(s) in quotations where NO edits need to be made for writing before/after each “…”):
L153 – Add a space between sentences
L153-154 – Change to “…aims to 1) describe the results of…”
L155 – Change to “meet the criteria and 2) present WTP calculations…”
L156 – Change to “Method (CVM), specifically the Dichotomous…”
L163-172 – Combine into ONE paragraph from two separate paragraphs that are not full paragraphs (full paragraphs by definition have a minimum of 3 sentences)
L207 – Change to “…was 762,059.42 hectares (ha) [53] with the”
L209 – Change “;” to “,” three times
L210 – Delete “;” since it is redundant since you already use a comma
L245 – Change “;” to “,”
L247 – Delete period to the left of the comma
L252 – Capitalize Appendix
L284 – Delete the word “The”
L311 – Add blank row above
L339 – Change to “…among mammals).”
L340 – Change to “Then Ceropithecidae…”
L337 – Change to “…the US$ to…”
L339 – Change to US$ 217.80
L340 – Change to US$ 118.01
L341 – Change to US$ 42.09
L345 – Change to US$ 61.88 and change to US$ 50.51
L346 – In Table 4 header, change to 1,000 IDR in 3 places since this is clearer
L348 – Add blank row above
L348-355 – Combine into ONE paragraph from two separate paragraphs that are not full paragraphs (full paragraphs by definition have a minimum of 3 sentences)
L350 – Change to US$ 48.95 and change to US$ 64.11
L354 – Change to US$ 124.27 and change to US$ 57.70
L355 – Change to US$ 56.53
L356-366 – Combine into ONE paragraph from two separate paragraphs that are not full paragraphs (full paragraphs by definition have a minimum of 3 sentences)
L377 – Start new paragraph with sentence that starts with “3) Due to…”
L393 – Change to “…to question 5 (Q5). The results is that”
L397 – Make plural so change to “by previous researchers…”
L404 – Change to “…have market prices. In other words, they…”
L414 – Delete the word “poor”
L446 – Add a blank space between sentences
L451 – Change semi-colon to period so change to “…wild animals. 2)”
L453 – Change to “…protected wild animals. 3) The motivation for…”
L478-489 – Combine into ONE paragraph from two separate paragraphs that are not full paragraphs (full paragraphs by definition have a minimum of 3 sentences)
L490-498 – Combine into ONE paragraph from two separate paragraphs that are not full paragraphs (full paragraphs by definition have a minimum of 3 sentences)
L505 – Change to US$ 124.27
L506 – Change to US$ 57.70
L507 – Change to US$ 56.53
Author Response
Dear Editors and Reviewer 1,
Thank you very much for your letter and for the reviewer comments concerning our manuscript titled ”Monetary valuation of protected wild animal species as a contingent valuation study in North Sulawesi” (ID: Sustainability-1812222). Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper getting better, as well as the important guiding significance to our research.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
