Reasons for the Survival of Tropical Forest Fragments in Xishuangbanna, Southwest China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors make intriguing use of survey methods to help quantify the reasons for persistence of forest fragments in China’s southwest tropical region while also quantifying current utilization of said fragments. The manuscript contributes knowledge to an area that is globally lacking. I recommend this manuscript for publication in Forests should the authors address the following minor comments.

The manuscript’s introduction does a good job of providing a broad background for historical ownership, management and utilization of forest fragments. But it would be nice to see a paragraph detailing why forest fragments are important in terms of ecosystem services such as: carbon sequestration, stormwater runoff mitigation, air purification, and human health/welfare, particularly for this region of China. Citation [1], while relevant, is used six times in the introduction. It would be good to augment the scant literature base in this manuscript. Surely there are other relevant citations which can be used in addition to Zhang et al. 2019. 47-49: This is a long and confusing sentence. As it stands it distracts the reader from the importance and summation of your paragraph and the set-up for the following paragraph. 124: “The more than one million human population...” Reword. This is a clumsy way to state it. How about: “With a population of more than one million Xishuangbanna includes 13 of China’s 56...” 131: “a.s.l.” You have not defined this. Either note a.s.l. after the first time you use “above sea level” or just use “above sea level” throughout. Most readers probably prefer the later. 142-143: Explain in greater detail what is meant by “semi-structured interviews” and “key informant interviews”. Is semi-structured simply a casual conversation with the interviewee? What is an informant? Are they government officials? People who are college educated and understand a little more than the average interviewee? An example of a key informant would be enlightening. Were there no standard survey type interviews? 154-156: This is a bit concerning. Interviewees referring other interviewees could bias survey results toward opinions and practices held by like-minded individuals. Please thoroughly explain what made randomization impractical. 157-170: This paragraph seems backward and jumbled. It would make more sense to restructure it. The first half about the interviewer’s background seems more appropriate at the end of the paragraph. Perhaps it should begin with line 159: “Permission for this study...”. Lines 165-171 seem more appropriate in a previous paragraph (see comment #5). 171-182: The reader will understand that it is important to earn trust to obtain more reliable survey results. At the same time, this level of involvement to conduct a survey will surprise some readers. Has this method or a similar one been published before? If so, it would be good to cite it. 171-182: Perhaps this paragraph would be better as the second one in the interviews section. 193: What is meant by “local taboos of the minority group”? Tell the reader why this is relevant/important, and if it’s not, remove it. The data analysis and coding section makes no mention of statistical tests or software used to conduct them. 234: Replace “cheap” with “inexpensive”. 313-315: “this has been much more difficult with collectively owned forests, particularly when these forests have been assigned to individual households” It is unclear how a collectively owned forest can also be assigned to an individual household. It either needs further explanation or brief reiteration. 326-327: “the implementation of the new ecological redline policy”. This would be a good place to recite [7]. 326-339: This is an important and well-written paragraph. It would also be a good place to mention ecosystem services (see comment 1).

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Overall this is our interesting paper with some potentially interesting results.

I however have some concerns of the paper.

(1) The paper title is promising reflections of policy. However l find this part rather weak. I was expecting a discussion in the end of the paper but this is rather weak and can be strengthened.

(2) The presentation of the results are sound, I have no problem with this. However, the presentation is somewhat repetitive in the sense that it is text presenting the results together with the share of the answers. The text would benefit of a more varied presentation of the results to make it more interesting to read.

(3) The paper talks about conflicts between agriculture & biodiversity, as fas as I understood it. However, I cannot help wondering if there also is a conflict with social and / or religious values. Is that so, does that also affect land use?

(4) It was mentioned that one of the authors of the paper lives | lived in the study area. J would like to see a stronger argument on the effect this probably had on the interviews. Also connected to method is the sdlection of respondents. I do not understand if these are a representative group of the population. It was mentioned that there were few females for instance, but the argument is somewhat weak and needs improving.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx