The Impacts of the Asian Elephants Damage on Farmer’s Livelihood Strategies in Pu’er and Xishuangbanna in China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this manuscript, the authors summarized and discussed the impacts of the damage by Asian Elephant causes on farmer’s livelihood strategy in Pu'er and Xishuangbanna in China. In general, the manuscript is well-organized and clearly stated. I would suggest accepting it after the following major concerns are addressed.
Q1. In the conceptual framework, the internal relationships between the three variables in the livelihood strategy need to be clarified rather than explained in the data description section.
Q2. How was the range of the Asian elephant determined? It should be explained in detail.
Q3. In the conclusion section, the suggestions in your paper are essentially similar to the existing strategies, you do not propose constructive strategies. The relevant suggestions should not be too broad and need to be more closely related to the results of the research.
 

Author Response

Thanks for your work to our submission. 

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors presented research on the impact of Asin elephants on farmers’ livelihood strategies. Their manuscript suffers serious flaws that need to be attended.

 The text should be greatly reduced, especially in the introduction and conceptual sections. They are too long and incomprehensible.

 The authors refer to many questions and types of data that they collected. However, I feel that they did not present all of them. They should either present them or remove reference to  them from the text. The current presentation is inconsistent and confusing, reducing the value of the manuscript. The questionnaire used in the survey should also be provided.

 The authors claimed that they surveyed 837 farmers, heads of families. But they also occasionally asked for information from other members of the household. This is not a valid approach as there is variation in understanding and views among individuals. The authors should better describe and clarify their methodology. And what about the managers and other experts that were interviewed. It was not clear how the collected information was used.

 The language needs thorough revision. Syntax is bad. Too many words are being used, be succinct.

 Specific comments

Lines 2,3: Article title not clear. Please revise to “The impact of Asian Elephants on farmers’ livelihood strategies in China” or similar.

 Line 4: Give author affiliations.

 Lines 14, 15, 17: What are “Asian accidents”?

 Line 27: Do not give names for citations. Replace “(Parker et al., 2007)” with “[1]”. Follow journal style throughout.

 Line 28: Italicize scientific names.

 Lines 29-30: What are accidents? Different from damage to crops? Crop raiding is not an accident. Please clarify and specify. “accidents caused by elephants and conditions of conflict” is not comprehensible. What is EAC? The exact wording is not obvious. How is EAC different to HEC?

 Lines 71-72: Not primarily in these areas?

  Lines 99-109: Impossible to understand what the study aims were. Too general text without specific direction and meaning. Please revise. What were the main aims and objectives of the study? The dependent variables and their potential predictors? Also, it would be impossible to understand aims without clarifying what exactly EAC is.

 Line 99: ACE?

 Line 104: What is DFID?

 Lines 114-123: To sustain a living is a thing, sustainability as in sustainable development is another, multi-factor inclusive. The way this paragraph is written confuses the reader about what is what. Please revise and be exact.

 Line 124, Figure 1: What are the letters N, H, M, H, S C on the graph?

 Lines 197-208: Xishuangban, Xishuangbanna, Xishuang. What is the difference? The reader could not understand. Please explain in the text. Be consistent throughout.

 Lines 198-200: Impossible to follow…

 Lines 205-208: But now it is 2023… What happened eventually? And in between?

 Lines 214, 216: What is AE?

 Lines 220-221: Will adopt and be carried out? Not was?

 Lines 225, 245: Did you use structured or semi-structured interviews?

 Lines 245-249, 259-260: Move to results. Or not? Not clear to understand…

 Lines 273-275: Results? Not a sentence….

 Line 318 and Figure 3: Move to results.

 Lines 323-327: Impossible to understand as it is written.

 Lines 389-463: The discussion is too general and not connected to findings. Rewrite the discussion as follows: Give results in a leadin sentence and then discuss them in the rest of the paragraph. Do the same for all results.

 Lines 424-429: These are results. Refer to them in the results section, then discuss them here.

 Page 13: Author contribution and other required statements are missing.

 Pages 13-15: Journal style in references has not been followed.

Author Response

Thanks for your work to our submission. 

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors have satisfactorily address the reviewers' comments and suggestions.

I can now recommend the article for publication.

One thing, I cannot see the title change in the second version of the article.