Recognition of Commons and ICCAs—Territories of Life in Europe: Assessing Twelve Years of Initiatives in Spain

Sergio Couto (), Gretchen Walters and José María Martín Civantos
Additional contact information
Sergio Couto: Laboratorio de Arqueología Biocultural, Departamento de Historia Medieval y Ciencias y Técnicas Historiográficas, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
Gretchen Walters: Institute of Geography and Sustainability, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
José María Martín Civantos: Laboratorio de Arqueología Biocultural, Departamento de Historia Medieval y Ciencias y Técnicas Historiográficas, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain

Land, 2025, vol. 14, issue 8, 1-34

Abstract: Lack of recognition lays at the root of many of the current challenges for commons and ICCAs—Territories of Life despite the wide range of ongoing, collective action initiatives in Europe acknowledging and fighting this gap. In this paper, using a mixed methods approach, we analyze twelve years of three bottom-up initiatives based on the commons and ICCA—Territory of Life concept, implemented in Spain from 2012 to 2025. The aim of this research is to assess and understand the degree of success of the initiatives, based on an analysis of the source of recognition and the type of goals achieved. In general terms, the three recognition initiatives were successful, especially at the levels of self-, peer, and international recognition. However, all failed to substantially improve public awareness and national and sub-national governmental recognition, especially when addressing policy change and implementation. We conclude that, in the European context, despite these challenges, the concepts of “commons” and “ICCA-Territory of Life” are powerful tools to achieve some level of recognition and are a strategic priority for facing Europe’s challenges fostering solutions that reinforce the role, capacity, responsibility, and rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.

Keywords: common governance; community self-strengthening; effectiveness assessment; Local Communities (LCs); collective action; peer review; peer support (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/8/1623/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/14/8/1623/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:14:y:2025:i:8:p:1623-:d:1721199

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().