The Forestry Association of Galicia emphasises that community woodlands are an “inalienable” form of property.”
The Forestry Association of Galicia (AFG) warns that the Government of Galicia is raising a debate that has long been settled, namely the imprescriptibility of community woodland, a characteristic upheld by both the current legislation and case law on the matter, as well as by the Spanish Constitution itself.
The recent statements by the President of the Xunta de Galicia emphasising the need for a satisfactory response to the issue of occupation of community woodland are clearly unfortunate, in the opinion of the Forestry Association of Galicia, since, although at first the president advocates seeking solutions that will satisfy all those affected, he ends up suggesting that, if that consensus does not materialise, the Xunta de Galicia itself will press ahead with regulating the community woodland that is no longer used as such.
With these words, the President of the Xunta de Galicia seems to be assigning the autonomous administration with powers it does not have. If an area of land was community woodland in the past, that status is never lost because the imprescriptibility of community woodland is a principal characteristic of this type of property. “The president is putting on the table a debate that has long been settled, both by the existence of countless regulations in force that refer to this main characteristic, and by the vast amount of case law reaffirming this imprescriptible nature, with subsequent ratification by the Supreme Court in those cases that reached that instance,” states José Luis Campos, Vice-President for Community Woodlands of the Galician Forestry Association.
The Spanish Constitution also qualifies communal forests as imprescriptible, so it can be considered that the Spanish Constitution itself supports the principle of the imprescriptibility of community forests which, whilst not communal, share many characteristics with them. But furthermore, the intention expressed by the President of the Xunta de Galicia to advance the regulation of the community woodland that is no longer used as such, with the foreseeable intention of not classifying as community woodlands the land that has had other uses in recent years, would clash head-on with state legislation, of a higher rank, which establishes with manifest clarity the imprescriptibility of the communal land, regardless of its current or past use.
Recently, it has been observed that this is the criterion used by the Provincial Commissions for Community Woodlands, under the Xunta de Galicia, which generally fail to classify areas with non-forestry uses, forcing recourse to the ordinary courts, where it is confirmed that these are decisions contrary to law.
“Criticising court judgments, while at the same time vowing to regulate in a way that runs counter to those judgments, so as to end up eliminating the main characteristic of the community woodland, is not defensible from the standpoint of the public interest,” emphasises José Luis Campos.
The Forestry Association of Galicia reminds us that the community forests are a valuable environmental, social and cultural heritage of Galician society, covering an area of around 600,000 hectares, which represents 20 per cent of Galicia's territory. “It is a challenge for Galician society to complete the recovery of the community forests and hand them over in the best possible condition to future generations,” highlights the AFG.
In the White Paper recently prepared by the Countryside Department to establish the aspects that the new wording of the Law on communal forests must regulate, it is stated that the imprescriptible nature of the communal forest “should constitute the content of an initial section of general provisions, which necessarily has to appear in the law,” emphasising in the same text that “it is necessary to incorporate into the legislation on communal village woods a regulation on the nature of the land in accordance with the new uses and activities that are developing in the village wood.”.
Therefore, it is incongruous that the President of the Xunta de Galicia himself, contrary to the criteria established in the White Paper for drafting the Law on Community Woods of Galicia, which was drawn up from contributions by the entire forestry sector, advocates making the classification as a community wood dependent on its use.
