Between Policy and Politics: The Forestry Services and the Commons in Portugal

Abstract

In the 1930s the Portuguese government launched a massive program of reforestation on the baldios, or communal lands. Reforestation came simultaneously with nationalization of these lands under the state Forestry Services. In 1966 this policy, along with other measures such as the creation of new villages and partitioning of the land among commoners, led to the official disappearance of the communallands. A 1974 coup d'etat changed the political context dramatically. The new government denationalized the baldios, restored their legal status as communal property, and returned the land to the people. The Forestry Services also changed, from destroyers of communal property to defenders of communal property. Communal forestry has subsequently become a third alternative to either private or public forestry. Communal forestry developed during the renaissance of tropical forestry in the 1970s, but has received little attention in Europe and North America.' Traditionally forestry development is concerned with public or private property, even though communal land management makes other alternatives for forest development possible.'Although within Portugal there is little discussion of the commons as an alternative management system, the baldios and their forestry use employ communal management as a way of attaining an economically, socially, and ecologically desirable land use system.