Across Europe, rural commons are often treated as a relic of the past – or else enclosed into either state property or private real estate.
Portugal took a different path. Under the Baldios Act (Law No. 75/2017), over 500,000 hectares of communal forests and mountain pastures are governed directly by assemblies of local residents, permanently locked outside the property market.
My full English translation of the Act is now live in the Root & Branch Library:
