The appropriation of private communal neighborhood forests. A hot situation
Julio Ruiz Cagigal
Technical Forestry Engineer of the Forestry Association of Galicia
In the last year, various news have been published in the media about lawsuits, doubts and disputes over historically private communal neighborhood forests, occupied by private houses, industrial buildings, public buildings and other infrastructure. Many of these occupiers cannot demonstrate a legitimate title to ownership or acquisition, and courts of law have ruled in favor of the private communal neighborhood forests owners as the proprietors of the land. Once ownership has been recognized in favor of the residents, it is necessary to channelize the contractual relationship between the occupant and the communal proprietors that owns the land. Sometimes negotiations are difficult and problems arise. There are legal solutions, but there is not always a will to reach an understanding. Faced with these problems, neutral mediation by the Administration would be desirable, which unfortunately does not seem to be happening.
In order to better understand this situation, it is convenient to review, however briefly, the historical development that the Galician private communal neighborhood forests owners suffered, a truly haphazard development, reaching to our days with an infinity of disputes and issues to be resolved, in good partly due to poor administrative intervention.
Historical origins of the appropriations and usurpations of private communal neighborhood forests
The litigious issue has historically been linked to the private communal neighborhood forests. The illegitimate appropriations and usurpations of private communal neighborhood forests can be traced back to the beginning of the 19th century, and even earlier, and are linked to the process of municipalization that began in 1834 and the increase in state interventionism over private communal neighborhood forests. It is worth remembering the confiscations, the legalization of arbitrary excavations or the reforestation plans initiated in the 20th century. These public policies have been undermining the ability of private communal neighborhood forests owners to defend their heritage and to carry out traditional uses, reaching the practical suppression of neighborhood organization.
Throughout this historical period, and until the restitution of their properties to the private communal neighborhood forest owners at the end of the 20th century, the private communal neighborhood forests went from mere tutelage by the councils in the early days, to being declared full municipal property. During the dictatorship of General Franco, the councils registered the forests of the neighbors as public forests in the inventories of municipal assets and also, in a multitude of cases, registered them in the Property Registry, without any title other than a simple certificate from the municipal secretary. All this, of course, without counting at all theprivate communal neighborhood forests owners, legitimate historical owners of the lands.
These forests, made public by the State, due to their neighborhood use should be classified as communal according to local regime legislation[1]. Of these, the larger ones, generally located in the highland mountains, were included in the Catalog of Forests of Public Utility and were made available to the State Forestry Heritage for reforestation through consortia. It should be remembered that the private communal neighborhood forests and those cataloged by P.U. enjoyed the legal characteristics of inalienability, imprescriptibility and unseizability.
However, perhaps due to a self-interested confusion, many communal forests have been classified by the councils as own or patrimonial, also known as freely available, that is to say, without enjoying the protective legal regime corresponding to communal or public utility. This happened, above all, with non-wild mountains, close to towns and more populated urban centers. In this way, these lands in the hands of the municipalities could be alienated, assigned or leased arbitrarily, without excessive administrative obstacles. The cases of abuse, with the permissiveness and even the complicity of the local authorities, to the detriment of the conservation of the private communal neighborhood forests were numerous, especially during the dictatorship.
In this way, many private communal neighborhood forests are dug up and occupied illegally by adjacent individuals, without the authorities worrying about these thefts. In other cases, councils give or lease plots to residents who request it for agricultural crops, who over time stop paying and build sheds and then houses. Municipalities also sell private communal neighborhood forests for residential, industrial or agricultural purposes. In other cases, it is state bodies that appropriate the private communal neighborhood forests, such as the Peinador airport in Vigo or the BRILAT barracks in Pontevedra. In no case did the private communal neighborhood forests owners receive any compensation at the time of appropriation for this loss of the right of use.
The neighborhood is stripped of its land and community uses are interrupted. When the procedures for the classification of private communal neighborhood forests began to be processed from the 1970s, many occupied forest plots were not recognized by the provincial juries of private communal neighborhood forests, citing precisely the absence of community use in these properties. The non-prescriptive and inalienable character recognized by legislation for private communal neighborhood forests is not taken into consideration.
Some illustrative examples are presented below.
Forest Pozas de Eimonde (Petelos, Mos)
Forest Pozas de Eimonde is described in the report made by forestry engineer Antonio Fenech in 1884[2]: “As regards ownership, it is for the common use of the neighbourhood of Petelos; it has a capacity of 13 hectares, thirty-seven ares, nineteen centiares; the vegetation it supports is purely herbaceous, without trees or woody bushes worthy of mention, for which reason only its pastures are used. This land will be classified by the Mountain Commission as alienable despite the author of the report recommending otherwise.”
In the photographs of the American flight of 1956-1957, you can see the beginning of occupations of land and four houses or porches. Requested by the residents of the parish of Petelos to classify this forest as a private communal neighborhood forest, the Provincial Jury in 1997 only recognized as neighborhood property two marginal plots, of 0.4 and 1.6 hectares respectively, excluding the enclosed plots constituted by the institute of secondary education and the sports hall and its adjacent grounds and services.
Currently, in the old private communal neighborhood forest of Pozas de Eimonde there are: 17 private houses, the municipal swimming pool, the municipal sports hall, the IES de Mos, the CEIP de Petelos and the municipal multipurpose building.
Forest Chan da Ponte (Salvaterra, Salvaterra de Miño)
In the historical document "State of the relationship of the private communal neighborhood forests of the entire province of Pontevedra" of the year 1861, which includes the files on the exception of the sale of the private communal neighborhood forests (Expropriation of Madoz) it is cited for the parish of Salvaterra, among others, Monte Chan da Ponte, Sangriñal, Landreiras, Pinar and others, with an area of 34.96 hectares.
In the 1958 Cadastre on aerial photographs of the American flight, Mount Chan da Ponte is identified as property of the Council of Salvaterra de Miño, with the consideration of "communal". A couple of occupations can be seen in this cadastre: a small factory and the municipal cemetery. The rest of the land is covered by grass and bushwood, its main use being grazing and the collection of manure.
The private communal neighborhood forest of the parish of Salvaterra were classified in 1984. Among the classified plots, Chan de Ponte plot is not found, being on the other hand the largest plot. The Council of Salvaterra had appeared in the file claiming that none of the forests of Salvaterra should be classified, among other reasons because:
“1st In the forests of this parish the City Council has already built the following works: municipal cemetery (…) 2nd In such forests the following lands are offered: two hectares for the construction of a house-barracks of the Civil Guard (…) 3rd Part of said forest, being close to the Villa, is essential for the expansion of the Villa (…)”
Nowadays, the forest Chan da Ponte is mostly occupied by an industrial estate (28 ha) divided into 44 plots, the Civil Guard post, the IES de Salvaterra de Miño, the municipal cemetery and the soccer field.
Forest Lomba (Ribadetea, Ponteareas)
Forest Lomba or Lomba do Cruceiro is cited as belonging to the private communal neighborhood forest of Ribadetea both in the Cadastre of Ensenada, in the Libro Real de Legos (1752), and in the list of forests excepted from the sale of Confiscation (1861).
In the 1956-1957 aerial photography cadastre, the parcels called Lomba are identified with an area of approximately 26 hectares, which appear as municipal ownership in the concept of communal. At this time only two occupations are found: a wood sawmill and a brick and tile factory. The rest of the forest is wooded with pine trees.
The private communal neighborhood forest of the parish of Ribadetea were classified in 1979. Only a small plot of two hectares called Rego da Besta was classified from Monte Lomba. The classification resolution contains the following statement from the Council of Ponteareas: "that the following land have been alienated for industrial purposes: (...) in the parish of Ribadetea, the forest called Lomba da Barca, as well as 20,000 m2 of Forest Lomba da Bargiela (…) that Forest Cruceiro de Lomba of the parish of Ribadetea was transferred to camping and for the construction of the urbanization of A Freixa and the rest for industrial purposes”.
At present, Forest Lomba or Lomba do Cruceiro is almost entirely occupied by plots with industrial uses, an urbanization with more than 80 chalets, the Municipal Local Development Center, a machinery park of the Provincial Council and an (abandoned) campsite.
Final reflection
From the previous examples it follows that the spurious interests of many councils prevailed over the responsibility to conserve private communal neighborhood forests and to respect the rights that their communal owners had over them and that still existed.
The question of the private communal neighborhood forests is a fundamental issue in the rural world of Galicia and reaches to the present day with important economic, social and environmental implications. In turn, the private communal neighborhood forests are a key part in the framework of the planning of the Galician territory. Being a unique legal figure and a reference heritage of Galicia, greater attention should be paid to it by the authorities and institutions, seeking to provide solutions to the problems that continue to be formulated.
[1] Communal assets are those of municipal domain whose use and enjoyment belong exclusively to the residents (artº 187 of the Law of 16 December 1950 on local regime).
[2] Fernández de Ana Magán, FJ, Rey Vázquez, LM, Rodríguez Fernández, R. J (2000): Neighboring mountains in the province of Pontevedra, 1886. Government of Galicia.