An Elixir for Disappearing Rural Communities? Reconstructing the Commons in Herrera de Sorias Forest (Spain)

Abstract

"Herrera is a tiny village in the Spanish plateau that was established in the mid 1700s. Nowadays less than ten houses are permanently inhabited by less than twenty people whose average age lies above the fifties. Herrera has a collectively owned forest with a total area of 1.509, 65 hectares of high economic value. The forest, previously belonging to a single landowner, was sold in 1905 at a public auction to a collective of 44 residents of the village. Nowadays, there are 443 potential heirs of the forest. Only 19 of them currently reside in the village of Herrera. For more than a century, the forest has been managed by the residents, according to the statutes established in 1905. Access to the forest resources has traditionally been allotted according to permanent residency in the village, independently from legal property rights. Under the new national forestry law passed in 2003, legal heirs of collectively owned forests can establish management boards to administer the productive uses of those forests. The new legal framework represents an unprecedented opportunity to promote collective action among geographically dispersed heirs. However, by separating residency requirements from property rights the law represents a major break with the customary law that has traditionally regulated these forests. Whereas the new law provides innovative institutional instruments for enhancing the economic uses of those forests, the extent to which it will be able to revert regressive dynamics of rural depopulation and abandonment remains uncertain. My research offers a preliminary exploration of the social organization process that is taking place in Herrera, a pilot project in the implementation of the new law. More specifically, I focus on the stories of three people from the village regarding their visions of the institutionalization process and its impacts of the local community."