Asociación Forestal de Soria is an association constituted in 1988, with the purpose of providing representation and defense to the owners of forests in private regime of the province of Soria, Spain. Today it represents more than 10,000 people holding some 80,000 hectares of forest land.
Asociación Forestal de Soria has a very long and important trajectory on commons building and defense. In 2009 it promoted an important reform that was made concrete in the 8th Additional Disposition of the Law 3/2009, introducing an important limitation to the division and extinction of forests commons forms avoiding, for example, the action of division of the woodlands. Also the permission to assign investments for the improvement of life quality for the people, from the profits coming from the management of the forest spaces.
In 2015, Asociación Forestal de Soria made a great advance, based on the context of the reform of the Spanish Law of Montes. In this case, through the ‘exposition of reasons’ and the article 27 bis, a recognition was gained specifically to the structure of the ‘montes de socios’, as a special type of property of collective character distinguished of the rest of private property.
Because of their efforts and achievements, the Asociación Forestal de Soria was awarded the 2017 Elinor Ostrom Award for Collective Governance of the Commons for Practitioners.
Website Asociación Forestal de Soria (in Spanish)
The Elinor Ostrom Award on Collective Governance of the Commons was established to honor and develop the legacy of Elinor Ostrom. The award aims to acknowledge and promote the work of practitioners, young scholars, and senior scholars involved in the field of the commons. According with Elinor Ostrom’s large legacy the scope of the Award aims to be broad, including academic and applied work on traditional commons (forests, water bodies, pasture lands, fisheries, et cetera), local commons, interlinked commons (forests and watersheds, fisheries and coastlines, et cetera), global commons, knowledge, cultural, and virtual commons. More info and other winners at http://elinorostromaward.org/.
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