"For a journal, they ask professionals in the field to review the manuscript."
I'm assuming that "they" is the writer?

From my perspective it looks like there is a lot of 'choir review' that goes on in the private sector of conservation organizations and such. When one follows the names, and there seems to be a lot of the same ones that keep cropping up, the whole thing smacks of cronyism. Mercenary biology?

Then, once these things that may have agenda driven cherry picking of data type of science get published, they then get quoted in the next paper as if accepted as hard fact.

How far back does it go? What kind of foundation is this house built on?
Can we trust any of it? Private or government?