Cultural heritage, sustainable forest management and property in inland Spain

Abstract

Corporation woodlands are a cultural and natural heritage of traditional rural collectivism and of the land use system that prevailed in central Spain during the Middle Ages. Corporation woodlands have survived due to the permanence of traditional cultures in a depressed rural society, where social relationships at the local level have remained important. The collective private woodlands have substantial problems adapting to the current legal framework and the socio-political context. Nevertheless, as social-spatial structures where traditional knowledge and social participation endure, they are a very valuable asset for rural development in central Spain through sustainable forest management. The aim of this paper is to provide a territorial viewpoint and assessment of corporative woodlands in the province of Soria, which is one of the most extensively forested provinces in Spain and has a strong collective private forest heritage. Corporative woodlands now exist in a great variety of forms resulting from the origin of land tenure, land ownership and land use rights, as well as social conflicts linked to difficulties with their legal status and how they are organised. How these factors have conditioned current woodland heritage will be analysed.