COMMON GOODS AND PRIVATE PROFITS - TRADITIONAL AND MODERN COMMUNAL LAND MANAGEMENT IN PORTUGAL

In Portugal still exist large tracts of communally owned land used for grazing, gathering, and for provision of fertilizer. Within users' co mmunities inequality can persist as one's capability to exploit a comm unal resource is related to access to private means of production: cat tle, man-power, and land. Communal land has become private property by usurpation, sales by local authorities, and partitioning amongst the commoners after state intervention. In all cases, elites benefitted mo re than lower strata. Most of the remaining area has been placed under control of the forestry services, but since 1976, local communities c an exercise rights of exploitation and management over these areas as well. Although revenues of state planted forests sometimes have become the bone of contention between local factions, and local and higher l evel organizations within and outside the state, this combination of f orestry and popular rights seems to offer the best guarantee for equal distribution of communal wealth.