Other forms of life (Spain): The community, united we stand

Nested in the mountains of North eastern Andalusia, in the highlands of the municipal terms of Santiago-Pontones and Castril (Jaén, Spain), even today, one can find extensive mobile livestock practices and a range of community systems which govern the sustainable use of these highland pastures. From all accounts, it seems that these community systems of governance have been in existence for at least eight centuries, and may be longer—millennia perhaps. They have anchored the social development in these terrains where nature is as wild and fierce as the sea can be on stormy nights.