The Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy Drives the Differentiation of Herders’ Livelihoods in Inner Mongolian Desert Grassland
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Dear Editors and Reviewers:
Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “The Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy drives the differentiation of herders’ livelihoods in Inner Mongolian desert grassland” (ID: 1832171). Those comments are very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in blue in the manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as following:
Point 1: The objectives of Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy (GECP) and dependence of herders on grassland for grazing animals for livelihood are completely contradictory with each other. The GECP supports conservation of grassland ecology while herder’s livelihood is dependent on utilization of grass for grazing and livelihood making which results into degradation of grassland. This point should be clearly mentioned. It is not clear in the introduction part.
Response 1: The expert's comment was very good. According to reviewer’s comments, we have rewritten this part and added relevant contents in the introduction. See line 85-104 marked in blue in the manuscript.
Point 2: The research is focused around find the answer to the three questions, namely What are the livelihoods of herders like after implementation of the GECP? What are the influencing factors of livelihood capitals on livelihood strategies? How can herders with different livelihood strategies improve their livelihoods? But the basic problem like how the implementation of GECP will resolve the issue of dependence of herders on grasslands for grazing their animals will be resolved remains unanswered? Please emphasize on it in elaborated way.
Response 2: Thank you for your good suggestions. We are sorry that we did not properly express it in the manuscript. In fact, the question “How can herders with different livelihood strategies improve their livelihoods?” is what we want to express “how the implementation of GECP will improve herders livelihoods and resolve the issue of dependence of herders on grasslands for grazing their animals”. And in the discussion part, policy suggestions were given on this issue. According to our research, we suggest that the government should take the shortages of different livelihood strategies into account and implement differentiated compensation measures according to shortages of different livelihood strategies.
We have made correction in the introduction part, see line 107-110 marked in blue in the manuscript. We also have revised the discussion part, see page 12,13,14 paragraph 4.3, 4.5 marked in blue in the manuscript.
Point 3: We interviewed a total of 270 households, and obtained 251 validated questionnaires. The efficiency of the questionnaire was 92.62%. Please justify this statement and explain how this efficiency of 92.62% was calculated?
Response 3: We are very sorry for our negligence. We have corrected it as: The efficiency of the questionnaire was 92.96%. See paragraph 2.2 marked in blue in the manuscript.
Point 4: Kindly include the following portion in bibliography
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.134954
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125772
Response 4: We checked the website you provided. These two papers are not related to the topic of our paper, and there is no consistency in content. Please confirm whether the website you provided is correct?
Special thanks to you for your good comments.
Other changes:
We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but marked in red in the paper.
We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper presented the results from socio economical surveys made un inner mongolia.
I have some questions and remarks on the paper. The main remark is about the title regarding the compensation aspect indeed the work is more a description of the different livestock system in the region and their livehood more than the study of compensation. I think the author must change their title to fit more their work.
Line 125 : Be more clear on the efficacity of the surveys how it was calculated
Model construction line 204 A bit unclear develop a bit more
Results
One category was very few surveys within it is important to discuss the point. The radar graphic could enough some of the results could be in supplementary
Discussion
Paragraph 4.5 add a bit more on the relationships with tourism and other activity.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Dear Editors and Reviewers:
Thank you for your letter and for the reviewers’ comments concerning our manuscript entitled “The Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy drives the differentiation of herders’ livelihoods in Inner Mongolian desert grassland” (ID: 1832171). Those comments are very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and have made correction which we hope meet with approval. Revised portion are marked in blue in the manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewer’s comments are as following:
Point 1: The main remark is about the title regarding the compensation aspect indeed the work is more a description of the different livestock system in the region and their livelihood more than the study of compensation. I think the author must change their title to fit more their work.
Response 1: Thank you for your good suggestions. We study the livelihood of herders after the implementation of the policy. Through analysis, we found that the livelihood of herders has changed from relying on livestock husbandry in the past to relying on transfer income(government subsidies) now. The subsidy is granted according to the area of households contracted grassland. The larger the contracted grassland area is, the higher the subsidy will be. This leads to a significant increase in the income of livelihood strategies with a large contracted grassland area. The inequality of grassland between livelihood strategies will lead to a large economical gap among the local herders. So, the GECP drives the differentiation of local herders’ livelihoods remarkably. We use this title to further emphasis our findings.
Point 2: Line 125 : Be more clear on the efficacy of the surveys how it was calculated.
Response 2: We are very sorry for our negligence. We have corrected it to: The efficiency of the questionnaire was 92.96%. See paragraph 2.2 marked in blue in the manuscript.
Point 3: Model construction line 204 A bit unclear develop a bit more.
Response 3: Considering the reviewer’s suggestion, we have supplemented explanation of the model construction. See paragraph 2.4.3 marked in blue in the manuscript.
Point 4: One category was very few surveys within it is important to discuss the point. The radar graphic could enough some of the results could be in supplementary.
Response 4: Thank you for your good suggestions. The data used in the study was derived from face-to-face household surveys based on a stratified random sampling strategy. Households were randomly selected in proportion to its total household numbers of town. Then we used cluster analysis according to livelihood capital indicators to grouped the 251 sample households into five types. The numbers of households of the five livelihood strategies were respectively 77, 56, 10, 65, 43, accounted for 30.68%, 22.31%, 3.98%, 25.90% and 17.13% of the total sample households. There were only 10 herders in LS3 group. This number is consistent with the proportion of such herders in the total herders of the research area. Although the households number of this group is small, they are very special and important. They are the group of older herders. Due to the shortage of labor, their livelihood mainly depends on the transfer income, and they are important targets of the compensation policy. The study on the livelihood of this group of herders is of great significance to the improvement of policies.
Considering the reviewer’s suggestion, we have checked the manuscript to ensure that the radar graphic and other tables were not duplicated. We also have supplemented the data related to the radar graphic in appendix A. See Appendix A in the manuscript.
Point 5: Paragraph 4.5 add a bit more on the relationships with tourism and other activity.
Response 5: Considering the reviewer’s suggestion, we have added relevant contents on the relationships with tourism and other activity in Paragraph 4.5. See page 13 marked in blue in the manuscript.
Special thanks to you for your good comments.
Other changes:
We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but marked in red in the paper.
We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers’ warm work earnestly, and hope that the correction will meet with approval.
Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.
