Conflicts as enhancers or barriers to the management of privately owned common land: A method to analyze the role of conflicts on a regional basis

• Published in: Forest policy and economics 2009-12, Vol.11 (8), p.617-627
• Main Authors: I., Gómez-Vázquez, P., Álvarez-Álvarez, M.F., Marey-Pérez
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Collective private ownership; common land management; communal forests; communal land tenure; Communal management; communication skills; community forestry; Conflict; conflict management; Demography; environmental impact; government agencies; land ownership; land tenure; Local press; methodology; Montes Vecinais en Man Comun; newsprint; private lands; public opinion; resource management; rural areas; rural population; sociodemographic characteristics; spatial data; spatial variation; Statistical and spatial analysis; surveys
• ISSN: 1389-9341; 1872-7050
• DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2009.09.001

Communal forests, or Montes Veciñais en Man Común (MVMC ), are a specific form of communal land tenure and a singular legal category in Galicia, a region in Northwest Spain. MVMC extend over one third of the area of the region. Over the years, MVMC have undergone many changes in terms of ownership and resource management. Such changes have resulted in land tenure insecurity among current landowners, who live in rural areas. The new land uses–mainly related to energy sources–the demographic changes, the role of the Public Administration as a manager of MVMC, the presence of private companies with interests in forests, and the disagreement between forest communities or among commoners of the same community have brought about many conflicts that have gone beyond the limits of forests and have been reflected in public opinion. This paper aims to provide a deeper insight into the level and mode of management of MVMC by determining the level and cause of conflicts associated with this type of forest. To this end, local and regional newspaper articles about conflicts in forest communities were compiled from libraries. In order to find correlations between the different social, economic or environmental variables and the degree of conflict, statistical and spatial analyses were performed. Results reveal a stronger impact of environmental conflicts and conflicts between commoners and government organizations, and a very uneven spatial distribution of conflicts. In addition, this article discusses the interpretation of the higher or lower degree of conflict as a positive or negative contribution to the management of privately owned common land, thus contributing a new methodology to determine the causes and consequences of conflicts over common land management.