Input of communal forests to sustainable development of the rural population: study case of Northern Portugal and Galicia

Communal forests occupy one million hectares in the Northern of Portugal and Galicia. Since centuries ago, “Baldios” and “Montes Veciñais en Man Común” (MVMC) played an essential function in the economy of their owner communities. This role was lost all through the last century due to the enormous afforestation and the decrease of agriculture. The restitution of democratic regimes returned the communal forests tenure to the communities. Given the extension and high average area, our paper aims to research its potentialities and limitations of contribution to rural development. Two case studies, one in North Portugal and another one in Galicia, allow identifying the individual and collective traditional uses and the achievements made with revenues linked. Both Galician and Portuguese realities exhibit similarities and complementary benefits, and needing social and economic innovation to make a better use of rural resilience. Communal lands and small-scale business projects could maintain the network of local produce markets with attractive aesthetic values as well as biodiversity conservation. The comparison of the different criteria shows economic aspects are the most valorised by the stakeholders. The management decision of collective forests was the alternative mixed by the communities and the Forestry Services as the best one to complete the main objective of sustainable rural development. As a final conclusion of our work, remarking that the communities owning these forests currently seem to have the conditions to successfully manage their properties if the commoners are able to mobilize and adequate organize the communities