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Dear Hein, unfortunatly I am in Macedonia right now, my younger colleague provide some information, see in attach Andraž

one more, I could not put two in one file.

Andraž

Here is the second

http://agrarne.si/zdruzenje-predstavnikov-agrarnih-skupnosti-slovenije/

as I understand this is common land that has more ownes. In Slovenian these institution is reestablishe by a law in 1994. The property was given back in the process of denacionalisation and now more owners posses this land. There are also laws that regulate this ownership.

also in Galicia (northwestern Spain) there is communal land. we briefly touched upon that in a recent DJG publication and are preparing a paper publication on an innovative community in one of the 2,800 communities (of which about 500 active ones). Further, we organize a round table on this issue at the upcoming agroecology congress (Vigo, Spain): http://webs.uvigo.es/economiaecoloxica/es/novas.php. Short information is available in the report on the first international seminar of the SUPURBFOOD project (Vigo, 2013): http://supurbfood.eu/

Perhaps not directly related to your search but perhaps somehow we could benefit from your findings: keep us updated

DJG: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00167223.2013.876206#.U1_AkK1_vZ8

Hi Paul, thanks for mentioning the large area of Galicia commons, mostly abandoned if I remember well; I came across these commons in another paper, but did not cited it in my article as these are not 'alpine' commons, but situated at lower elevations. I will try to recover the article for your team.

Hi Andraz and colleagues,

Great to receive confirmation of alpine commons in the Slovenian Alps. And its seems the commons institution are designed following a similar template as elsewhere in the Alps. The owner of the alpine, pastoral commons is a cooperative of farmers (in other words a legal person rather than an individual or the state). What I really want to know next is whether the members of the cooperatives hold unlimited grazing rights (as in Namibia) or regulated rights (prescribed number of animals per commoner) as in the Austrian, Swiss and Italian Alps and the historical lowland commons in NL and Germany. If unknown we have a research topic.

that attached must be useful

Thanks Amando. In a quick scan I see some interesting governance information, like the two tier Slovenian system from municipality to national without a regional tier in between. And evidently a nice standardized overview of biodiversity. But I do not see a systematic treatment of the alpine commons as governance institution. 

In the mean time I have obtained a good overview of the alpine commons in Switzerland. The most interesting new info (for me) is the re-establishment of the alpine commons institution in South-Tirol after the establishment of regional autonomy. That makes two cases (Slovenia is the other) of rebirth. 

Just came across this paper - thought I'd share it with you:

Landolt, G., and T. Haller. 2015. Alpine Common Property Institutions under Change: Conditions for Successful and Unsuccessful Collective Action by Alpine Farmers in the Canton of Grisons, Switzerland. Human Organization 74 (1):100-111.

Which other info did you find on the Swiss Alpine commons?   - besides the references from Netting - What Alpine Peasants Have in Common: Observations on Communal Tenure in a Swiss Village . 

Thanks, Walter

In the mean-time, I found a number of recent Swiss references, additional Slovenian ones and even a first comprehensive references from the German Alps. The latter reports a similar institution to our Tyrol cases, but the variety among commons institutions in Switzerland seems much wider than in the other alpine countries. No wonder for a mature federal state I guess. 

Hi Hein,

Just yesterday I received the attached publication on commons in Slovenia.

With best regards,

Andras

Thank you, Andras. You may have noticed that the recent Slovenian article referenced on several issues to our Tyrol study.

I would be interested to hear whether the institutions of the alpine commons as described and analysed by us in Tyrol came as a surprise to you and colleagues in Vienna? I found to my surprise that even at the field station of the university in Obergurgl, nobody seemed to know at any debt about the functioning of the commons. 

Hi Hein,

Well I already thought of this a week or so ago, when I first saw your work.  Honestly speaking I was surprised that according to my knowledge nobody here has researched the commons in Tyrol.  I have just spoken to collagues here in Vienna and they confirmed my assumption.  I have led several excursions for collagues from Asia to commons in Vorarlberg over the past more than 10 years and therefore it was very interesting to get a different insight into AGMs by reading your paper!

Thanks, Andras, for making me curious on commons in Vorarlberg. Do you have an excursion report, thesis or another citable document? In my profile you may see that I have an article in press on a comparison between commons institutions in Namibia and Austria. And I am also working on a sequel comparing commons in two African countries. The forest component of the commons in the Alps is also unresearched to the best of my knowledge.

Nice to hear your road (back) to the alpine commons was though foreign students. Similarly, I taught about commons at my international university to African and Asian students and I knew from my mountaineering and vegetation research about the commons in Tyrol and elsewhere in the Alps. My research opportunity came when a mature African MSc student, elected district councillor in his country, took an interest in the institutional side of commons surviving over the centuries.

Interestingly enough I found that the names of commons in all other Bundesländer (States) are published on the web (Wikipedia), but not those in Tyrol. Privacy issues.