Water-Related Payment Schemes for Forest Ecosystem Services in Selected Southeast European (SEE) Countries

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper examined the level of payment for ecosystem services (PES) concept implementation in the financing of water-related forest ecosystem services in the Repulbic of Croatia, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovian, Republic of Slovenia and Republic of Serbia through a content analysis. This topic is important and also interesting, but I found that there are many unclear concept and descriptions. To make this paper publish, I believe these issues should be addressed.

 

Major issues

1. This paper distinguish PES as pure PES schemes and PES like schemes. In the section of introduction, those concepts are described but not clear. In line 41, “PES according to several definitions …” Not clear! Also, authors keep using unclear words such as “that service, well defined ES, well known buyers, etc”. I guess that authors assume that readers may know the concept and background of PES. However, I think it is a very strong assumption. In Introduction, those concepts should be given clearly.
2. It is not clear about the range of ES. It seems that authors focus on forests and water. Those ecosystems are very complex and broad in terms of definition.
3. All tax can be defined as like PES in this manuscript. Is it right? Tax is a type of “use pays” PES scheme because consumers pay a tax. (line 100)
4. In line 123, “ water is a public good”. It can be right, also wrong depending on the definition of water services.
5. This manuscript mainly used government act and legislation documents. I am wondering if there is no voluntary PES system. Also, there is no interaction between a non-voluntary system and voluntary system. Furthermore, there is no interaction between a domestic system and an international system.
6. Water services are governed by multiple government bodies such as environmental agency, agriculture agency, forest agency, and industrial agencies. In particular, there are conflicts between the environmental agency and the agriculture agency for using water services. When it comes to applying “user pays” and “polluter pays” principles, the government needs to define the users and polluters, but practically it is hard. So, I am wondering how to define them and apply the scheme. I am not clear what a PES scheme is pure or PES-like.

 

Minor issues

1. English : forests and waters (line 104) -> forests and water
2. English: bot(line 53) -> but
3. Terminology should be consistent in the manuscript. In table 1, what is B&H? Is it FB&H?
4. The style of reference should be well formatted and consistent in the manuscript.
5. In line 873, reference 55 missed the name of journal (article).
6. English editing is necessary for this manuscript.

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1

 

We would like to thank you for kind suggestions and comments of our manuscript which we accepted. The way how we adjust the manuscript is explain according to your comments. 

 

Reviewer 1

This paper examined the level of payment for ecosystem services (PES) concept implementation in the financing of water-related forest ecosystem services in the Repulbic of Croatia, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovian, Republic of Slovenia and Republic of Serbia through a content analysis. This topic is important and also interesting, but I found that there are many unclear concept and descriptions. To make this paper publish, I believe these issues should be addressed.

 

Major issues

1. This paper distinguish PES as pure PES schemes and PES like schemes. In the section of introduction, those concepts are described but not clear. In line 41, “PES according to several definitions …” Not clear! Also, authors keep using unclear words such as “that service, well defined ES, well known buyers, etc”. I guess that authors assume that readers may know the concept and background of PES. However, I think it is a very strong assumption. In Introduction, those concepts should be given clearly.

 

To make our concepts clear we add some new references and broader definition given by Muradian. Still we decide to use Wunder’s one for our comparison. We adjust the text to avoid all unclear words and assumptions. 

 

2. It is not clear about the range of ES. It seems that authors focus on forests and water. Those ecosystems are very complex and broad in terms of definition.

 

Yes, we focus on relation of forests and water and make it clearer in the text as we are aware of complexity of both resources and would like to focus only on few water related ES provided by forests. We add text to make this limitation clear.

 

3. All tax can be defined as like PES in this manuscript. Is it right? Tax is a type of “use pays” PES scheme because consumers pay a tax. (line 100)

 

We make it clearer as we consider all budgetary income (which is mainly from different taxes but not limited to) as PES like for several reasons; the payers are not defined as polluters but rather as users of different ES, or any other services or benefits from state; they in a way decide on a way of spending the budgetary money via elections or participating in the processes of bringing the different plans and programs of environment protection; the activities which are financed can be related to forests and water and their relation; payments are not voluntary but it is secured by the Acts and by that provision of the ES is also secured for the future. 

 

4. In line 123, “water is a public good”. It can be right, also wrong depending on the definition of water services.

 

The water related forest ES are defined more in context of common pool resources and the mistake is corrected. Some references are added too.

 

5. This manuscript mainly used government act and legislation documents. I am wondering if there is no voluntary PES system. Also, there is no interaction between a non-voluntary system and voluntary system. Furthermore, there is no interaction between a domestic system and an international system.

 

Yes, this is a valid remark but the fact is that regulatory driven PES schemes dominate in all analysed countries - what is probably the consequence of specific social and political heritage, common for many countries in transition. Prescribed by the legislation, they are missing the condition referring to voluntariness, so it qualifies them into the category of PES-like scheme. The examples of voluntary and self-organized payments are rare and mainly associated with NGOs activities or private funds. In this situation, there is no interaction between non-voluntary and voluntary systems - or at least it is difficult to be evaluated. However, developing voluntary-driven types of PES schemes may be the option, under the assumption that an appropriate mix of policy instruments (including the shift from regulatory towards more informative instruments) will be developed in the future. The precondition for this is more facilitating role of governmental authorities as an alternative to the traditional top-down approach in policy formulation. This is added in the Conclusions.

 

 

6. Water services are governed by multiple government bodies such as environmental agency, agriculture agency, forest agency, and industrial agencies. In particular, there are conflicts between the environmental agency and the agriculture agency for using water services.

 

Yes, we are aware of this situation and we add some sentences in the text bringing out our previous research on the conflicts between sectors of forestry and nature protection in the region.

 

When it comes to applying “user pays” and “polluter pays” principles, the government needs to define the users and polluters, but practically it is hard. So, I am wondering how to define them and apply the scheme.

 

In analysed countries it is not too hard as state govern natural resources and by acts force all users to pay something and during issuing any licence for business which could harm the environment some payment is prescribed.

Although, I see what you are asking, the many users without business are also polluters as we all are but this is not topic of this paper. Still we make some changes to make it clear.

 

I am not clear what a PES scheme is pure or PES-like. We want to look at existing payments schemes (financing schemes) in analysed countries through PES lenses, comparing characteristics of each scheme with Wunder definition which we find quite clear and easy for comparing.

We didn’t find pure PES, but we would like to consider forestry payments due to its characteristics as closest to pure PES. 

 

Minor issues

1. English : forests and waters (line 104) -> forests and water – It is corrected.
2. English: bot(line 53) -> but – both The mistake is corrected.
3. Terminology should be consistent in the manuscript. In table 1, what is B&H? Is it FB&H?

 

Thank you for this intervention. Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) is consisting of two entities (the Federation of B&H - FB&H and the Republic of Srpska) and Brčko District. As the National Forest Inventory is conducted only at the level of the State (B&H) and not the entity, the data presented in Table 1 refers to the State (it was explained in the footnote now). We made it clear in the text.

 

4. The style of reference should be well formatted and consistent in the manuscript.

 

We formatted references in manuscript.

 

5. In line 873, reference 55 missed the name of journal (article). – The name of the Journal is added.

 

6. English editing is necessary for this manuscript. We used editing service and hope that manuscript is improved in that sense.

The aditional editing is done.

We are very grateful for your valuable comments and effort to review our manuscript. We hope that by this we answer your questions.

 

Kind regards

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is well written, clear and address a very actual topic of governing water-related forest Ecosystem Services (ES). However, I think the paper has greater potential than just a presentation of the legislation review, thus I suggest the following which can be briefly addressed within the paper:

- At the end of Chapter 3 provide a summary table (maybe a matrix) for a quick and clear presentation what selected countries have in common and what are their major differences - this will be helpful for a reader to easier comprehend the topic and perhaps you may come across another finding(s);

- The provision of water-related ES are (and in the future will be even more) essential for humans, but some of them do not happen per se. We all need to grasp that someone needs to manage ecosystems in the way that they provide these valuable ES. Therefore, it is necessary to highlight that people need to understand that such ES are not taken for granted. This should be at least recognized and such practices subsidized. This is especially the case of ES provided by natural common-pool resources. It would be further necessary to point out that water is not a public good as usually comprehended in policies, but a common-pool resource - that is why it needs to be governed. This is something that people and also politics in the selected countries should learn and take into account and act accordingly.

- There is a group of actors (at least in Slovenia i.e. agrarian communities) who are private, self-organized, who owns larger forest areas and has thus important potentials in managing forest functions and ES. It would be noteworthy to mention their role and eligibility in the PES system.

- Discuss what does your result mean for the future policies in selected countries? What could be and what should be improved?

 

General comments:

- check for minor misspellings and typos,

- Figure 1 is missing,

- what does abbreviation FFGB stand for?

- line 498 – is there a mistake when stated: »The Act on Waters also mentions deforestation as protection measures against erosion and torrents in watersheds …«. How can deforestation be a measure against erosion?

 

I hope these suggestions and comments will encourage authors to do additional step and to draw attention to some further considerations and lessons which hopefully will contribute to better policies in the selected countries.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2

 

Thank you for your nice words and valuable comments. We try to answer all of them and by that improved our manuscript.

 

Reviewer 2

The paper is well written, clear and address a very actual topic of governing water-related forest Ecosystem Services (ES). However, I think the paper has greater potential than just a presentation of the legislation review, thus I suggest the following which can be briefly addressed within the paper:

 

- At the end of Chapter 3 provide a summary table (maybe a matrix) for a quick and clear presentation what selected countries have in common and what are their major differences - this will be helpful for a reader to easier comprehend the topic and perhaps you may come across another finding(s);

 

We provide summary table which make comparison easier to follow. We stress only main findings there, to avoid repetition.

 

- The provision of water-related ES are (and in the future will be even more) essential for humans, but some of them do not happen per se. We all need to grasp that someone needs to manage ecosystems in the way that they provide these valuable ES. Therefore, it is necessary to highlight that people need to understand that such ES are not taken for granted. This should be at least recognized and such practices subsidized. This is especially the case of ES provided by natural common-pool resources. It would be further necessary to point out that water is not a public good as usually comprehended in policies, but a common-pool resource - that is why it needs to be governed. This is something that people and also politics in the selected countries should learn and take into account and act accordingly.

 

We add several explanations in the text and correct the mistakes related to public good and common pool resources statements. We used some new references and sources which are included in the manuscript.

 

We used Araral (2014) to stress importance to note that legal definition applies specifically to the system of resources - such as forest ecosystems, watersheds, etc., which can be used by everybody, but not to what derives from those systems, such as woods, fisheries, water, all of which are rivalrous.

 

Also Fisher (2010) was very useful to explain CPR characteristics of some ES. Also, we used his consideration on poor management of ecosystems and ES when the use of one service can affect the provision and existence of other services. Therefore, it can be said that there is a strong link between CPR management and the existence of ecosystem services.

 

Some parts of Ostrom (1990) book were also very valuable. In our research area (selected countries), only government has control over the management with national water resources. Forest land and water resources have open access, like walkers and swimmers. Other categories of CPR like group property and individual property of water resources doesn’t exist in our case. Water resources and their management were defined as government property which is controlled through national public body.

 

- There is a group of actors (at least in Slovenia i.e. agrarian communities) who are private, self-organized, who owns larger forest areas and has thus important potentials in managing forest functions and ES. It would be noteworthy to mention their role and eligibility in the PES system.

 

Under “private actors” in forestry sector of the region, we mainly consider private forest owners. Although in some countries in the region (Slovenia for sure and to the certain extent Serbia), private forests are (pre)dominant type of ownership in national property pattern, private forest owners are quite inactive. It is usually due to extremely small-scale (in average less than 1 ha) and fragmented property. Besides, owners are often far away from their land (due to internal and external migratory processes) and do not manage forests (the issue of abandoned land in rural areas). We all agree that huge potentials of private forests can be unlocked only by institutional aggregating the individual interests of their owners. Whatever, it does not happen - the associations of private forest owners are either inactive or do not exist at all. The situation is maybe different in Slovenia, but in other countries the associations are not recognized as important actors of national forest policies. Though private forests are extremely important when it comes to providing ES, their role in PES system is unfortunately marginal in current circumstances. We tried to highlight this in lines 693-706 and 661-675.

 

- Discuss what does your result mean for the future policies in selected countries? What could be and what should be improved?

 

We add few sentences in that sense in the discussion chapter.  

 

General comments:

 

- check for minor misspellings and typos,

- Figure 1 is missing, - It is only one Figure, we corrected the mistake.

 

- what does abbreviation FFGB stand for? – We erased this abbreviation as it stands for national definition of forests ES.

 

- line 498 – is there a mistake when stated: »The Act on Waters also mentions deforestation as protection measures against erosion and torrents in watersheds …«. How can deforestation be a measure against erosion? It is mistake and it is corrected.

 

I hope these suggestions and comments will encourage authors to do additional step and to draw attention to some further considerations and lessons which hopefully will contribute to better policies in the selected countries.

 

Thank you for your recommendations and valuable comments, we hope that we succeed to answer on your questions and by that improved our manuscript to the publishable level.

 

Kind regards

 

Reviewer 3 Report

General comments

The MS gives a good insight how different Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) works in South Eastern Europe. The main difference is between ‘user pay’, ‘polluter pays’, and ‘tax like PES’ systems. Further, the authors make clear differentiation between ‘pure PES’ and PES like systems.

The MS is generally well written although I think that the language can be improved and can be condensed. I recommend the MS to be published after some minor revision mainly a language make over.

 

Specific comments

Page 1, line 19: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment as refereed as [1], but on page 3, line 52 it is refereed to as [9]

Page 3, line 105: rephrase sentence ‘Countries like …’

Page 3, line 109: change ‘… forestry [46], …’ to ‘… forestry sector [46], …’

Page 4, line 122: change ‘… to the same Black See River basin.’ to ‘… to the Black Sea basin’.

Page 5, line 163: Rephrase sentence ‘In the second …’, difficult to understand

Page 21, line 598-602: check numbering

 

Minor notifications

Page 2, line 53: Change ’Bot,’ should be ’Both,’

Page 3, line 94: ’policy- driven’ should be ’policy-driven’

Page 3, line 96: ’… interventions ,taking …’ should be ’… interventions, taking …’

Page 4, line 123: change ‘… state Water …’ to ‘… state. Water …’

Page 4, line 131: change ‘… when was needed …’ to ‘… when needed …’

Page 5: Figure 1 missing

Page 8, line 247: change ‘… (until 2019. it was …’ to ‘… (until 2019 it was …’

Page 12, line 273: change ‘… isgoverned …’ to ‘… is governed …’

Page 15, line 439: change ‘… State Forests,, …’ to ‘State Forests, …’

Page 21, line 583: change ‘… [2] ,it …’ to ‘… [2], it …’

Page 24, line 740: change ‘… others[59] …’ to ‘… others [59] …’

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3

Thank you for your nice words and valuable comments. We did our best to answer on all your questions and suggestions.

The MS gives a good insight how different Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) works in South Eastern Europe. The main difference is between ‘user pay’, ‘polluter pays’, and ‘tax like PES’ systems. Further, the authors make clear differentiation between ‘pure PES’ and PES like systems.

We add some additional explanations on how we see pure PES and PES like schemes, and tax like schemes. At least how we defined them for the purpose of our investigation.

The MS is generally well written although I think that the language can be improved and can be condensed. I recommend the MS to be published after some minor revision mainly a language make over.

 We did all minor revisions and some additional editing.

Specific comments

Page 1, line 19: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment as refereed as [1], but on page 3, line 52 it is refereed to as [9] – it is corrected

Page 3, line 105: rephrase sentence ‘Countries like …’ – we rephrase sentence

Page 3, line 109: change ‘… forestry [46], …’ to ‘… forestry sector [46], …’- accepted and changed

Page 4, line 122: change ‘… to the same Black See River basin.’ to ‘… to the Black Sea basin’. – accepted and changed

Page 5, line 163: Rephrase sentence ‘In the second …’, difficult to understand – accepted and rephrased

Page 21, line 598-602: check numbering -corrected

 

Minor notifications

Page 2, line 53: Change ’Bot,’ should be ’Both,’ – corrected

Page 3, line 94: ’policy- driven’ should be ’policy-driven’ – corrected

Page 3, line 96: ’… interventions ,taking …’ should be ’… interventions, taking …’ – corrected

Page 4, line 123: change ‘… state Water …’ to ‘… state. Water …’- corrected

Page 4, line 131: change ‘… when was needed …’ to ‘… when needed …’ – corrected

Page 5: Figure 1 missing – There is only one Figure, we corrected the mistake.

Page 8, line 247: change ‘… (until 2019. it was …’ to ‘… (until 2019 it was …’ – corrected

Page 12, line 273: change ‘… isgoverned …’ to ‘… is governed …’ – corrected

Page 15, line 439: change ‘… State Forests,, …’ to ‘State Forests, …’ – corrected

Page 21, line 583: change ‘… [2] ,it …’ to ‘… [2], it …’ – corrected

Page 24, line 740: change ‘… others[59] …’ to ‘… others [59] …’ – corrected

 

 

Thank you very much for your nice words and valuable comments.

Kind regards