Refined Systems of National Accounts and Experimental Ecosystem Accounting Versus the Simplified Agroforestry Accounting System: Testing in Andalusian Holm Oak Open Woodlands
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Please check writing style, English spelling and grammar;
Please restructure the keywords
Please emphasize the main concepts in order to achieve the aim of the research
Please take into consideration incorporating a section on the role of International Financial Reporting Standards on Experimental Ecosystem Accounting
Please elaborate the conclusions section, they are presented inadequately
Author Response
Manuscript ID: forests-735291
Type of manuscript: Article
Title: Refined systems of National Accounts and Experimental Ecosystem Accounting versus the simplified Agroforestry Accounting System: Testing in Andalusian holm oak open woodlands
REVIEWER 1:
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
[Question 1]. Please check writing style, English spelling and grammar.
[Authors answer 1]. This version of the paper has been revised by a native English speaker professional translator.
[Question 2]. Please restructure the keywords
[Authors answer 2]. We have removed several keywords and incorporated by others. Lines 55-56.
[Question 3]. Please emphasize the main concepts in order to achieve the aim of the research
[Authors answer 3]. We have defined the ordinary net added value (NVAo) in lines 88-90, the farmer voluntary opportunity cost in lines 99-113, and the concept of environmental asset gain (EAg) in lines 407-411. The rest of the concepts (ES, CEA, CNWead, EI) are defined in the Glossary of Appendix A in Campos et al. (2020: pp. 31-34) published in this monograph of Forests journal.
[Question 4]. Please take into consideration incorporating a section on the role of International Financial Reporting Standards on Experimental Ecosystem Accounting
[Authors answer 4]. We have incorporated a paragraph highlighting the links of the Marais et al (2019) references and IFRS IAS 41 Agriculture with the possible expected future development of agroforestry accounts to scale of farm of the EEA standard and the AAS (see lines 854-872).
[Question 5]. Please elaborate the conclusions section, they are presented inadequately
[Authors answer 5]. We have completely rewritten the conclusions. We have added in the conclusions the purpose of studying HOW’s ecosystem accounts, the most relevant findings and the innovations in the registers and new economic concepts that can improve the future EEA standard that is expected to be approved in the spring of 2021 by the UNSD (se lines 1028-1068).
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Reviewer Comments
Overall Comments:
The authors have ventured to tackle avery difficult, challenging, and complex yet very contemporary and relevant topic on SEEA-EEA. In this regard, I recommend them for the courage to work on this topic.
It is evident the authors are not native English language speakers, therefore, the manustript is fraught with several incorrect sentence structure and grammar throughtout. This manuscript must undergo thorough language editorial by a professional English language editor to make sense of the whole writing. The poor English grammer distracts the reader from the meaning intended.
Specific Comments:
Pg 2, Ln 86-96: the authors have introduced a number of key techhincal terms that are central to the study. While these terms may be understood by those working in the SEEA-EEA area of research, other audiences/readers may not be so familiar with the terms. I suggest that the authors consider providing a glossary of these terms somewhere in appendix section.
Pg 4, Ln 150-153: it is not clear to me what the authors are alluding to with this sentence. Do they mean to say that all forests at regional scale have incorporated the Rsna except the region of study (Andalusian region forest)? How can this be true?
Pg 10, Ln 365-368: The authors have indicated that they have not incorporate ecosystem degradation and value added and operating surplus without any justification. This trend is repeated in many sections of the manuscript. Rationale or justification should be provided why certain things and done or not done. While some of these actions are consistent with UN SEEA-EEA others may not be.
Pg 18, from Ln 577 (entire section 4): literature review should not be mixed with discussion of results. Literature review materials should come upfront after introduction sections as is the norm is articles.
Pg 24, from Ln 887 (Conclusions): The authors should provide some shortcomings of this analysis and suggest topics of further research to improve SEEA-EEA framework going forward, given this system is still experimental and would benefit from further improvements.
Author Response
Manuscript ID: forests-735291
Type of manuscript: Article
Title: Refined systems of National Accounts and Experimental Ecosystem Accounting versus the simplified Agroforestry Accounting System: Testing in Andalusian holm oak open woodlands
REVIEWER 2:
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Overall Comments:
[Question 1]. The authors have ventured to tackle a very difficult, challenging, and complex yet very contemporary and relevant topic on SEEA-EEA. In this regard, I recommend them for the courage to work on this topic.
[Authors answer 1]. Thank you for recognizing our effort to integrate the production and capital accounts, extending the concepts of economic activity to the final product consumption that nature offers without the use of manufactured (man-made) costs and substituting the SNA valuation of the finished products without market prices at their simulated transaction value based on consumers' marginal willingness to pay. We have highlighted this idea in a new final paragraph in the concluding section (see lines 1069-1079).
[Question 2]. It is evident the authors are not native English language speakers, therefore, the manuscript is fraught with several incorrect sentence structure and grammar throughout. This manuscript must undergo thorough language editorial by a professional English language editor to make sense of the whole writing. The poor English grammar distracts the reader from the meaning intended.
[Authors answer 2]. This version of the paper has been revised by a native English speaker professional translator.
Specific Comments:
[Question 3]. Pg 2, Ln 86-96: the authors have introduced a number of key technical terms that are central to the study. While these terms may be understood by those working in the SEEA-EEA area of research, other audiences/readers may not be so familiar with the terms. I suggest that the authors consider providing a glossary of these terms somewhere in appendix section.
[Authors answer 3]. We have defined ordinary net value added (NVAo) on lines 88-90, the farmer voluntary opportunity cost on lines 99-113, and the concept of environmental asset gain (EAg) on lines 407-411. The rest of the concepts (ES, CEA, CNWead, EI) are defined in the Glossary of Appendix A in Campos et al. (2020: pp. 31-34) published in this monograph in Forests journal.
[Question 4]. Pg 4, Ln 150-153: it is not clear to me what the authors are alluding to with this sentence. Do they mean to say that all forests at regional scale have incorporated the rSNA except the region of study (Andalusian region forest)? How can this be true?
[Authors answer 4]. We have rewritten the sentence to clarify that we want to say that this study is the first to compare the sAAS, rSNA and rEEA accounting frameworks at a sub-national scale in the holm oak open woodlands (HOW) of the Andalusian region (see lines 162-169).
[Question 5]. Pg 10, Ln 365-368: The authors have indicated that they have not incorporate ecosystem degradation and value added and operating surplus without any justification. This trend is repeated in many sections of the manuscript. Rationale or justification should be provided why certain things and done or not done. While some of these actions are consistent with UN SEEA-EEA others may not be.
[Authors answer 5]. We have replaced the paragraph on lines 365-368 of the first version of the article with the new paragraphs on lines 525-567 of this second version of the article. We have incorporated the justification for the absence of adjustments in the ordinary net added value and the ordinary net operating surplus proposed by the EEA in our applications of the three comparative accounting systems. However, we underline that the ecosystem degradation is generally taken into account in the environmental asset revaluation in the ecosystem capital account, and in the case of carbon environmental degradation is also included in the production account.
[Question 6]. Pg 18, from Ln 577 (entire section 4): literature review should not be mixed with discussion of results. Literature review materials should come upfront after introduction sections as is the norm is articles.
[Authors answer 6]. Thank you for this recommendation. We have moved subsection 4.1 to the new section 2. We have also re-written this new section 2 (see lines 234-373).
[Question 7]. Pg 24, from Ln 887 (Conclusions): The authors should provide some shortcomings of this analysis and suggest topics of further research to improve SEEA-EEA framework going forward, given this system is still experimental and would benefit from further improvements.
[Authors answer 7]. We have incorporated a new text in sub-section 5.4 that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the rSNA, sAAS and rEEA methodologies compared from the perspective of proposing an integrated EEA standard that measures environmental income consistently with the total income of the HOW (ecosystem) (see lines 963-1027).
We have added in the conclusions the purpose of this HOW study, the most relevant findings and the innovations in the registers and new economic concepts that can improve the future EEA standard that is expected to be approved in the spring of 2021 by the UNSD (see lines 1028-1068).
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
All parts of the article are interesting and up to date;
The research is grounded in the international literature;
Please check writing style, English spelling and grammar;
Author Response
Manuscript ID: forests-735291
Type of manuscript: Article
Title: Refined systems of National Accounts and Experimental Ecosystem Accounting versus the simplified Agroforestry Accounting System: Testing in Andalusian holm oak open woodlands
REVIEWER 1:
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
[Reviewer comment 1]. Please check writing style, English spelling and grammar
[Authors answer 1]. We thank the reviewer's comments and especially the suggestion to revise the English spelling and grammar. A professional native English has carefully reviewed the text and we now believe that the many mistakes that were made in our previous version have been corrected.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
