Governing the Commons and Making a Living

Chapter 3 discusses community governance institutions, forest use, and agricultural practices during the twentieth century, and the interrelationships among them. A communitarian tradition, which evolved from governance structures imposed by the Spaniards, is seen as the framework for collective action, common property, and social solidarity. Insights from common-property theory show that La Campa’s practices incorporated elements associated with effective management. The forest-field-fallow cycle structured people’s attitudes toward the forest, land use, and land rights. By examining household subsistence strategies, the organization of municipal government, and the forest-field-fallow cycle, it is possible to see how agriculture, forest use, and community institutions constituted a dynamic system that mitigated risk and reinforced social ties. The persistence of forest cover occurs as part of this system, yet signs of degradation began to appear around villages in the early 1900s. The discussion asks whether La Campa intentionally conserved forests; the analysis suggests that people did not conceive of conservation in the Western sense. Instead, they aimed to conserve the productive potential of the land and the natural resources that they needed for survival in a context of economic constraints, recurrent famine, and higher-level political-economic instability.