Grassland resources are critical ecological resources in many countries (such as China, Australia, and the USA) and play an essential role in achieving sustainable development goals. They are of great value in maintaining ecological security, regional economies, and human well-being. Due to human activities and climate change, grassland degradation has become a global social-ecological problem that severely limits the sustainability of indigenous people's livelihoods. Especially in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region of China, it has experienced the complicated process of grassland degradation and grassland restoration. Despite the trend for the grassland ecosystem to get better. However, there are still some problems in balancing ecological function and social development currrently. During the above course, one of the key drivers of this is that the level of herders' perception of sustainable grassland use can directly affect the local land ecological status and is a prerequisite for generating conservation behavior responses. To further clearly portray the level of awareness of pasture degradation among pastoralists in the Tibetan Plateau region and the factors influencing it. Therefore, this research based on the household survey data in the Yellow River Headwaters area (Madoi, Machin, Banma, Dari, and Gander), and used the Tobit model to identify the main factors affecting herders' ecological perceptions of grassland degradation by analysis of herders' livelihood patterns and ecological perceptions of grassland degradation. The results show that (1) 88% of the herders in the Yellow River source area believe that the local grassland has been degraded to different degrees in the past 5 years, and the herders' intuition is consistent with the generally accepted view of the academia, and the overall level of ecological cognition has significantly improved. (2) The multi-household grazing, children's education, new technology training, and livestock breeding scale have positive effects on herders' perceptions of grassland degradation. (3) The averagely annual household income and the national grassland subsidies have a negative influence on herding households' perception of grassland degradation. Therefore, in order to effectively solve the problem that herding households in the Yellow River source area rely heavily on grassland ecology and a single industrial structure, we should (1) strengthen professional skills training for farmers and herders and improving the overall cultural level of grassland farmers and herders; (2) encourage small and medium-sized herders to participate in joint-family management; and (3) optimize herders' livelihood methods and improve livelihood strategies continuously, thereby reducing the herders' dependence on pasture, which will achieve sustainable development of social-ecological systems.