Common Properties for the Sustainable Management of Territories

Dear Colleagues,

Although environmental protection goals have become primary and essential to achieve sustainable development, climate change together with the COVID-19 pandemic have made it even more urgent to intervene to protect and restore the biodiversity upon which the future of the planet and, therefore, human well-being depend.

In recent decades, the concept of biodiversity conservation has evolved thanks also to the crucial contribution of local communities in protecting the natural environment. In this perspective, an aspect of significant and renewed interest is represented by common properties—those resources that, by tradition, local communities own and manage collectively and which generally concern forests, woods, pastures, waterways, etc. They are institutions, currently custodians of multiple values—tangible and intangible—that have played a fundamental role in the conservation of natural resources and that can now make it possible to rediscover new forms of sustainable and solidarity-based territory management.

Contrary to the inevitability of Garrett Hardin’s tragic predictions and in line with the research started by Elinor Ostrom, local communities’ ability to successfully manage common properties on the basis of principles of solidarity and in a long-term intergenerational perspective is increasingly acknowledged.

In the face of growing awareness of the vital role that collective properties can play in the pursuit of environmental goals at the global level, there is still much to be done both in terms of recognition and evaluation as well as support.

The aim of this Special Issue is to promote an international and interdisciplinary scientific comparison on the broad and complex theme of common properties, both in terms of environmental protection and territorial economic, social and cultural development policies.

• Actions and tools for the valorization of commons properties;
• Values and evaluations of common properties;
• Biodiversity and ecosystem services object of collective ownership;
• Governance and use of collectively owned resources;
• Models of the use of collective properties;
• Common properties and new roles in territorial governance;
• Innovative forms of common properties management;
• Economy of places.

Dr. Fabiana Forte
Prof. Dr. Pietro Nervi
Guest Editors

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• common properties
• biodiversity conservation
• local communities
• sustainable management
• values and valuation