The Communal Forest of Teis, Spain
The Communal Forest of Teis, located in Vigo, Spain, is a type of communal property which was established centuries ago with the arrival of the Teutonic tribes to the Iberian peninsula. Nowadays, similar communal forests can still be found in Galicia and northern Portugal. Despite such organisations being banned during Franco's dictatorship, they have been recovering little by little since the late 1970s, slowly reclaiming their customary rights.
Beginnings
In 1998, the Comunidade de Montes Veciñais en Mancomún de Teis was officially founded. Unfortunately, this coincided with the construction of a highway through the communal forest. The highway’s impacts were devastating and marked the beginning of a long period of community struggle against environmental degradation inflicted on the area. High voltage cables, garbage dumping, construction of roads and highways, government-built public facilities, and exotic species all intruded on the Communal Forest in the late 1990s. Nevertheless, it was these circumstances which played a key role in shaping the future goals of the Teis Forest community, and its associated organisation.
Vision
In response to this degradation, the community decided that the best course of action would be to restore the native forest to the state (from which it had fallen) when the Communal Forest was first established in the late 1990s. The community felt that what had been sold to them as ‘native forest’ was a poor imitation of what it could be, featuring geometrical plantations with a poor selection of native tree species.
Since the beginning, the Community has tried to mimic a native forest as much as possible. For this reason all the plantations are unlike conventional plantations. Trees are not planted geometrically, but are instead planted with careful consideration of density, tree type, aspect, and soil. In following this model, the community has taken strong inspiration from the Atlantic forest. It has taken time to see results but, over the years, the community have been able to closely observe a slow yet dynamic process of profound healing.
Obstacles
The main logistical obstacle in the community’s dream has been the battle against Black Acacia (Acacia Melanoxylun). This Acacia species, originally from southern Australia, was introduced in the 1940s and 1950s in the hopes that it would be a good building material. When this project failed, the Black Acacias were completely abandoned. Periodic forest fires encouraged them to spread prolifically, asphyxiating the few remaining pockets of native forest. The community knew that dealing with this tree would be difficult, but the reality was much worse than they had initially realised. To tackle the acacia forest would require unimaginable determination, resolution, and patience, but they succeeded in the end.
The Community have borne witness to the return of many different native animals, plants, and mushrooms that had been absent for many years. They all returned because the right conditions were provided – and all this in a forest near a city like Vigo, with a population of more of 300,000 people. It is undeniable that the geographical location offers many opportunities to show a model that inspires other people to reclaim the Galician landscape.
Impacts
The positive impacts of this still-ongoing transformation on the local community and other citizens have been immense. It has generated employment, facilitated recovery of different traditions and uses of the forest, and allowed the local community to reconnect with the forest in their daily lives. As well as providing essential benefits for community members (‘comuneiros/as’) and other citizens, this transformation has been beneficial in a very wide sense for all the sentient beings of the forest. The Communal Forest of Teis, as an organisation, strongly believes that reviving degraded forests is also as an opportunity to conceive a new ethic – one based on a respectful relationship with nature.
In the last twenty years, students from primary school all the way to university, have been on guided visits to the forest. Volunteers of all ages and backgrounds have helped by planting, clearing and controlling the bush, and participating in innovative activities to remove Black Acacia trees. As the successes of the community have mounted, the media have become increasingly curious and keen to spread the project’s message. Meanwhile, the community have been eager to encourage mutual knowledge exchange with academics. In a world where often more is said than done about restoring native environments, the forest’s restoration has been like an outdoor laboratory in motion.
Next steps
The community has a never-ending list of goals. Key among them is to finish restoring the native forest. They hope to create a realistic example that, as well as providing its own benefits, could also help other communities pursue the goal of creating new pockets of native forest. Creating a web of native forest spaces is absolutely key. Without similar projects to this one, the Community’s project will exist paradoxically as an isolated “exotic” island of native forest surrounded by huge forestry plantations filled with exotic trees.
Life itself is does not occur in isolation. In fact, life is by definition entirely interdependent. This is perhaps the most important lesson that the Comuninade de Montes de Teis has experienced directly by working on this project for more than two decades.
Secretary of Comunidade de Montes de Teis Manuel López Rodriguez
This case study was originally published by UNEP-WCMC in 01/25. The content was provided by the custodians of this ICCA. The ICCA has been self-declared and has been through a peer-review process to verify its status. More details on this process can be found here. The contents of this website do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of UN Environment Programme or WCMC.