Assessment of the Resilience in SEPLS (Socio-Ecological Production Landscapes and Seascapes) in Yanuo Village, Xishuangbanna, Southwest China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

We were delighted to learn about your experience with conducting resilience assessment workshops in Yunnan Province, China. The research results surely will be of a benefit to current and future researchers and practitioners in the field of socio-ecological resilience and community-based biodiversity conservation.

There are some aspects of your paper though that do require substantial revision and a more in-depth analysis. Please carefully consider the following points:

Indicators of Resilience in SEPLS are not the only available indicators to measure local resilience. What is the reason of you choosing this particular set of indicators? Is Yanuo Village one of IPSI case studies, a part of the Satoyama Initiative? If so, it should be clearly defined in the text. If not, it should be explained why were the Indicators of Resilience in SEPLS used? In lines 71-85 you set the background of your case study, however, you don’t explain why “Yanuo Village should be urgently concerned for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management in Southwest China” (lines 78-79 or 106-107).  What are potential changes, shocks or disturbances that may affect resilience of Yanuo Village? In other words, you should clearly state the rationale of conducting the workshops in this area. Your methodology needs to be better explained:

- Why was it only 15 out of 427 residents who participated in the workshops? What was the reasoning behind this selection of participants? What are their roles in the village? Can such a limited number of respondents represent a comprehensive picture of Yanuo’s resilience?

- Who were those people from “within and outside the community” (lines 21-22) who planned and implemented the workshops? Who carried out the research and what was the researcher’s role in this study?

- How many workshops took place? Over what span of time? Please provide a more explicit information on the workshops themselves (date, place, number and roles of participants, etc.)

- Activities of the follow-up stage sound rather theoretical while their practical implementation and significance to the community remain unclear. This part needs a stronger emphasis.

4) Conceptual model in Figure 3 requires further explanation in the text (maybe a whole paragraph). How is the given study based on this conceptual model? If it is a theoretical core of this paper, it needs to be properly explained and referred to throughout the paper, if not – there is no need for calling Figure 3 a “conceptual model”. Moreover, the items listed as bullet points in each box (Figure 3) also can be questioned. Are these the only ecosystem services provided by SEPLS? What does resilience in SEPLS mean?

5) Results and Discussion sections must be strengthened by:

- Reiterating rationale of the workshops and identifying actual or potential shocks or disturbances revealed by the workshops.

- What exactly happened at the Follow-up stage and how was the community involved in it? Did a “discussion on interventions to enhance resilience” (line 142) take place with the communities? What key topics were revealed (line 115)? How was the exercise evaluated by the participants? How could the longevity and sustainability of such interventions be ensured? Are any follow-up assessments planned in Yanuo Village? The role of the local community in your research should be highlighted further.

-  We suggest Section 4.2 “Proposal for the framework for assessment” to be revised with an in-depth explanation of the framework. Currently, lines 234-246 do not provide a sufficient explanation of the framework and may only confuse the reader. Another possibility would be to incorporate this proposal in Conclusions as a part of the future work.

- The analysis does not create a clear picture of what difference did the workshops make to the local community? Lines 28-30 and 231-232 state that “the existing community management approach is suitable for development of Yanuo Village”. How about the “interventions to enhance resilience” (line 142) then? You need to make a clear emphasis on what improvements are needed and how such can be achieved. Otherwise, it seems like the authors are suggesting that the status quo is sufficient enough and can be replicated to other similar communities.

6) In Conclusions please address potential challenges or limitations and provide suggestions for conducting similar assessments in the future.

Please carefully read through your text to omit any redundancies, revise the language and style. Make you’re your spelling of numerals (e.g. 20 or twenty) is consistent throughout the text.

Author Response

Please see attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript presents the results from the SEPLS resilience assessment in Yanuo Village in Southwest China, suggesting the suitability of the existing community management approach together with a few improvements that need to be made. Despite the comprehensiveness of the framework to show the perspectives of the local community to resilience, it’s unclear how the authors evaluated the ‘suitability’ of the existing approach as I can hardly understand how ‘suitability’ is defined in this context. Also, it’s unconvincing if this manuscript provides any theoretical (and/or methodological) contributions to the knowledge in the area of sustainability.

 

The manuscript could be improved if it is clarified, for instance, how the findings from the assessment can connect to the broader context (i.e., what knowledge gap this manuscript is to fill out) and to what extent the lessons from this assessment could be applicable to other parts of the world. The specific comments and suggestions are as follows:

 

1) Introduction:

Some of the phrases are very general, and I would suggest the contents should be more specific: what is meant by “the realistic challenge” (Line 42), “a series of activities” (Line 46) and “the new era of rapid socio-economic development” (Line 85); the information of 253 members (Line 44) and more than 40 countries (Line 80) should come with the date/year.

 

Also, rationales for the assessment work are not much clear, and I would suggest that the authors clarify, for instance, why it is indispensable for stakeholders to assess the SEPLS resilience (Line 62-64), and why the SEPLS in Yanuo Village should be urgently concerned of biodiversity conservation (Line 78-79).

 

2) Materials and Methods

In particular, I would suggest that the authors describe the methodologies in more specific terms.

 

Line 106-107: It is not much convincing that an assessment of SEPLS resilience should be done just because of rich biodiversity and unique ethnic culture in this area. What would you like to draw out from the assessment in this particular area?

 

Line 132-133: I would suggest that the authors explain how and why 15 residents have been chosen.

 

Line 134-136: How did participants reach a consensus on a certain score to each indicator? How group scores are determined (e.g., average of the scores submitted by 15 participants)?

 

3) Results

Some statements are general and I would suggest again that the authors explain the findings more specifically.

 

Line 146-147: What standards were used to evaluate the score range to conclude that the resilience performed well? (e.g., better than what?)

 

Line 149: The statement “the ecosystem services performs good” is very general. I would suggest that the authors specify what kind of ecosystem services performed well.

 

4) Discussion

Some of the terms may need to be explained: e.g., “good ecosystem services” (Line 199), “biological insurance” (Line 207).

 

Line 196-197: The sentence “Furthermore, despite…” is unclear in regard to what it is meant.

 

Line 221-222: I wonder how the authors identified “traffic conditions” as the factor mainly affecting “livelihoods and well-being.”

 

Line 225: It’s unclear what is meant by the statement “Reliance on ancient plantation is too high.”—how and why it is problematic in this context?

 

Line 229-232: I wonder how and why the authors conclude that the existing management approach is suitable despite the two suggested improvements to be made (i.e., mechanisms for handing over traditional knowledge, socio-economic infrastructure).

 

Line 236: What are exactly “previous studies”?

 

Line 236-237: It is difficult to understand the logic of this sentence.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Many thanks for your recent revisions that have substantially improved the manuscript. Your edits in Methods, Discussion and Conclusions parts are particularly valuable for understanding the overall importance of your work and its potential replication in other areas.

However, some minor revisions are needed to further improve the current draft:

• Conceptual model or your study (Figure 3) still needs to be improved and/or better articulated. Connection between resilience and ecosystem services lacks clarity and doesn’t explain why these two categories should be looked at in combination. Also, if ‘ecosystem services’ is one of the key elements of your study, you may consider further categorizing and exemplifying them within the text or by the means of a table. Same may be said about ‘biodiversity’: please list some of the key species present in the area and connect them to resilience in SEPLS.
• Providing a general land use map of Yanuo Village could allow the reader to have a better understanding of the landscape diversity and various ecosystems services present in the area. A visual representation in support of the 1 Study Area paragraph could be quite helpful.
• What is the difference between sustainable resilience (line 58), resilience of livelihoods (line 83), biodiversity resilience (line 141), etc.? Use of such multiple terms creates confusion of what type of resilience if Yanuo SEPLS is actually being measured.
• Please carefully revise your manuscript in terms of contextual redundancies (e.g. line 78), English language and style.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript details the results from the SEPLS resilience assessment in Yanuo Village in Southwest China, and argues the usefulness of the participatory assessment process and findings, which could be scaled up to a wider range of communities. It demonstrates unique features of the assessment that would contribute to promoting sustainable natural resource management at the local level. Yet, the manuscript includes unclear (or possibly illogical) sentences and phrases that may mislead the readers or incur confusion, while it lacks some specific information or substantial explanation that allow readers to fully understand the contents. In addition to the extensive editing, more specific and clear writing with some additional details would help improve readability, accuracy and credibility of the study. The specific comments and suggestions are as follows:

1) Abstract: 

• Lines 16-17: When was the workshop held? 
• Line 25: What is SEPLS research? 
• What are meant by “knowledge of the potential shock of traditional knowledge loss”; “Economic activities should be ‘optimized’” (Line 29), and “socio-economic infrastructure” (Line 29)?
• Line 30-32: It would be helpful if the authors could mention briefly why and how the assessment frameworks can be scaled out to other communities in tropical montane regions.

2) Introduction:

• Line 38-39: Is it true ‘always’ whenever the local communities adapt to ..and benefit from it?
• Line 40-41: Is this the global trend? Reference(s) could be included here.
• Line 46: “IPSI is has developed…” may be replaced by “IPSI’s collaborative work has developed..”?
• Line 50-51: What would the authors like to suggest by referring to this fact (i.e., the recent increase in the ecosystem services assessment frameworks)?
• Line 53-61: To improve readability, the concept and definition of SEPLS would be explained in the previous paragraph (where the term was first used in the text). Also, the term “Sustainable resilience” is unclear. 
• Line 60-61: Reference(s) should be preferably added to provide evidence to support this sentence.
• Line 63-67: This should be more accurate: who developed the indicators (some organizations seem to be missing).
• Line 75: “for employment” might not be appropriate words in this context: Does anyone (or companies) employ some others? 
• Line 81: What kind of “economic development activities” are pressuring the community?
• Line 83-88: Whom is this study aiming at enabling to develop a strategy? What kind of knowledge gap is this study seeking to fill in?

3) Materials and Methods

• Line 99: “e oil” seems to be a typo.
• Line 115-117: A little more explanation would be expected to improve the readability of text and Figure 3: How are the three boxes linked to each other? What does “They” mean? (Line 116)
• Line 120: What are “key systems”? (Are they SEPLS?)
• Line 130: Who are “Researchers”? (Are they the authors of this manuscript?)
• Line 139-142: What time horizon was used for assessing the trends? I can assume that a score for each indicator represents the current status, while I guess a direction of the arrow represents possibly an ongoing trend (e.g., based on the trend in past few years) or potential future trend (e.g., for the next 10 years). This could be specifically mentioned in the text.
• Line 143-144: Table 1 could be shown in the section of “3. Results” instead of the section “2. Materials and Methods”.
• Line 147-149: It is unclear what are meant by “proposal for the framework for assessment” (147-148) and “assessment workshop” (149). Are the both meant for the same thing (i.e., the follow-up workshop)?

4) Results

• Line 157: What kinds of “ecosystem services” were performed well? - if not specified, for instance, “a variety of ecosystem services” might be an option for rephrasing this.
• Line 158: It is unclear from the text whether it is the highest among the 20 indicators or 5 categories. More specific writing would improve the readability — (this could also apply to 175-175, 181-182).
• Line 166: It is unclear what is meant by “.. remained constant through time” - how long? 
• Line 166-169: It is unclear what these results actually show: Any comments from the participants or observation from the authors about these scores would help improve readability (similar explanation to Line 171-172 would be appreciated).
• Line 180-181: The sentence “Women’s knowledge, …” could be more specifically written: what kind of women’s knowledge, etc. were discussed? The phrase “at most scoring levels” could be rephrased for instance by saying “judging from the high value of the score”?
• Line 195-196: I would expect that this could be more specifically described: What is meant by “the transportation” (e.g., driving a car or availability of any public transportation means)? How do “the terrain and tropical climate conditions” affect the transportation?

5) Discussion

• Line 206-209: The sentence is unclear: for instance, what do you mean by “the potential shock of the resilience”? (the same question can apply to Line 252)
• Line 212-213: The sentence “Biodiversity, including .. “ may require a reference to the finding from the previous section: Based on what finding are the authors state this?
• Line 214-218: I wonder if similar trends can be found in other categories: how can the authors explain about it for the category of “Biodiversity”?
• Line 222-223: It’s unclear what is meant by “managing the system extensively” — What do you mean by “extensively”?
• Line 225: I wonder if the authors mean that these foods are widely consumed ‘at the local level’?
• Line 227-229: The sentence is unclear: What are meant by “ecosystem reliability”, “biological insurance” etc.?
• Line 235: I guess “Education and employment opportunities…” should be “A lack of education and employment opportunities..”.
• Line 244: I guess “Sustainable …” could be “Economically stable” or more other appropriate words?
• Line 254-255: More specific and clear explanation would be expected: what are meant by “socio-economic infrastructure” and “optimized”?
• Line 260-263: These two sentences would require evidence: It would be good if the authors could point to any findings/results from the assessment.
• Line 265: What do the authors mean by “more system elements”?

6) Conclusions

• Line 274-277: This conclusion seems to be against the general result (Line 154-155). I would suggest that the authors could provide why they conclude with this sentence.
• Line 278-280: This sentence finally provides what the directions of the arrows mean (i.e., locals’ prediction of changes in each of the indicator items: this should be mentioned earlier (in section of materials and methods).
• Line 282-284: This is the new information that was not described in any of the earlier sections, but should be mentioned earlier if the authors would like to conclude this. The same comment applies to Line 288-289.
• Line 291: It’s unclear what is meant by “This information”: Is it the results from the workshop? — I wonder if the authors want to say the results from the workshop was complemented by… for the purpose of this study? 
• Line 294-299: The logics behind these sentences are not clear: More specific writing would be appreciated — why and how the resilience indicators are significant to the local people (e.g., the indicators allow the local people to recognize … provide a room for discussion …?)?

Author Response

See attachment, please.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx