Pastoralism and Common Land in Andorra: Rights Explained

An Andorran pasture is not defined only by its grass. Its use can depend on who owns the land, which community holds a grazing right, what season is open, which animals may enter and who is responsible for keeping the arrangement workable. A single mountainside can therefore be at once parish property, a resource for local herders, part of a cross-boundary customary right and a habitat shaped by livestock. To understand pastoralism in Andorra, it helps to separate the land itself from the rights and rules that govern its use.^S001^S002^S003

The documentary vocabulary is old, but it does not map neatly onto a modern property diagram. Terres comunals are communal lands; empriu can refer to the right to use particular resources, and in Andorran historical writing it can also identify the resource or area over which that right operates. A pasture right did not automatically mean ownership of the ground. Nor did communal ownership imply unrestricted access at every time of year. Historical ordinances, parish rules, agreements and arbitration gave these arrangements their practical boundaries.^S001^S004^S005

Ownership, use and access are different questions

The Consell General’s historical glossary describes communal land as land outside private ownership that was open to collective use, often including forests and high mountain areas less suited to cultivation. It records a confirmation by Count Ermengol VI of Urgell in 1133 of the inhabitants’ right of use, or empriu. This is an important early reference to collective use; it should not be mistaken for a modern cadastral title or evidence that every current communal parcel derives from one identical grant.^S001

The word empriu has a broader legal history. TERMCAT defines it as a communal exploitation or use right over rural resources—generally pastures, woods and waters—held by the inhabitants of a village or rural community. Andorran institutional sources use the term in relation to community rights over shared resources, while the historical scholarship also describes rights that one community exercised on land associated with another. Translation as “common land” alone can therefore obscure the distinction between the ground, its owner and the particular use granted to a community.^S006^S003

Four questions help untangle a land claim. First, who holds title: a parish, another public body, a private owner or a group? Second, who has the right to pasture, cut hay, gather wood or use water there? Third, what conditions limit that right—species, season, number of animals, fees, route or supervision? Fourth, which institution can authorise or enforce a decision? The answer may differ at each level. The word “communal” does not settle all four.^S002^S004^S007

Today’s constitutional framework gives the Comú responsibility for parish property, including communal public-domain property, within its jurisdiction. It also places communal property, natural resources and territorial delimitation among the matters addressed by qualified law. Article 84 separately says that laws should take account of customs and usage when determining the competence of quarts and neighbourhoods and their relationship with the Comuns. These provisions recognise both formal parish administration and the importance of local custom; they do not, by themselves, identify the precise current grazing entitlement for a named pasture.^S002

The consolidated Administrative Code treats communal assets as public-domain property even where they are not assigned to public use, a public service or the promotion of national wealth. Article 94 distinguishes common use, which is equal and non-exclusive where conditions permit, from private use that occupies or limits a portion of public-domain property; Article 98 sets the communal-asset regime. Those general categories help explain why public ownership is not a blanket promise of unrestricted use. A pasture may have a public owner and still be subject to a particular management regime, acquired rights or seasonal restrictions.^S007

The code’s general category of common use is not the same thing as an inherited pastoral entitlement. A public-domain path might be available for ordinary passage, while a grazing right belongs to a defined community or holder and is limited by season, livestock or a specific agreement. Conversely, an authorised herd’s use of pasture does not mean that every visitor has permission to enter the same land for any activity. The legal question turns on the affected asset, its designation, the right relied on and the applicable rules—not on the broad label “public” or “communal”.^S004^S007

The 1993 Qualified Law on the delimitation of Comuns’ competences assigns parish councils responsibility for reviewing boundary markers and communal emprius, and for delimiting communal lands with quarts and private owners. The statute is particularly useful as evidence that boundary work and recognition of emprius were administrative tasks, not merely oral lore. For present legal reliance, however, the current consolidated text and any later amendments must be checked; an original gazette copy is not itself a full account of later legislation.^S008

A right can cross a boundary

The most striking historical feature of empriu is that use rights could reach beyond the community’s own territory. Historian Maria Teresa Ferrer i Mallol documents an agreement from 1280 in which Bishop Pere d’Urtx granted Andorrans grazing rights on the mountain of Vallcivera, then within the territory of the Castle of Llosa. The right covered large and small livestock, drying hay and overnight stays, while Llosa’s inhabitants retained their own uses and the bishop retained ownership. The Andorran community paid an annual ham as a form of consideration. The example makes the separation between ownership and usufruct concrete: several parties could hold different rights connected to the same place.^S005

Cross-boundary rights could be reciprocal, one-sided or limited to particular resources. Ferrer describes disputes across the Pyrenees in which neighbouring communities contested grazing, passage and woodland use. In Andorra, the 1280 Vallcivera grant placed a right within a neighbouring jurisdiction. In 1289, Count Roger Bernat III arbitrated a dispute between Sant Julià de Lòria and Andorra la Vella over the mountains of Forganyà and Perafita; the settlement gave Lòria’s inhabitants the empriu there and directed Andorra not to obstruct it. The record establishes a specific historic award, not the contemporary boundary or present-day access rule.^S005

These cases make borders more complex than a line between two parishes. One community might own or administer a tract while another held a right to pasture animals; a third party might collect a fee or retain a right to its own herds. The terms could be recorded in an agreement, a judgment, an ordinance or a later account. A map of administrative boundaries cannot show the whole arrangement unless it is paired with the documentary record that explains the rights attached to the land.^S003^S005

The 1289 Forganyà–Perafita arbitration is one point in a longer record of boundary-making. Vela’s account describes disputes between Andorran communities and neighbours over pasture domains and territorial limits, with the Consell de la Terra and Comú councils defending community interests. In 1499, the Consell de la Terra appointed elected consuls and councillors to arbitrate a conflict, an early institutional step towards the later tribunal of inspection. The episode shows how collective rights required a recognised procedure for resolving competing claims; the council was not simply a body that allocated grass but a forum that helped communities assert and review territorial use.^S003

That complexity made evidence and record-keeping important. The National Archives describes the old Comú of Andorra la Vella’s fonds as covering 1280–1978 and including documents on parish government, boundaries, pasture and empriu delimitations, ecclesiastical dues and public works. The archive comprises thousands of textual records, books and parchments. Its survival allows historians to trace how a claim was stated and administered, while the archive description itself warns that the documents belong to a particular institution and do not represent every Andorran parish equally.^S009

The 2009 catalogue of the same communal archive separates matters that can otherwise be collapsed together: ordinances, cattle, transhumance, animal health, fines and damages, pasture conflicts, peixena rights, and agricultural services. Separate archival headings do not prove that each subject always had an independent administration. They do show that communal pastoral governance generated different kinds of business—rule-making, movement, animal control, enforcement, conflict resolution and services—which historians should not reduce to a single “grazing right”.^S010

What historical pasture rules controlled

Rules did more than specify who could enter. They could control timing, animal numbers, the condition of herds, passage, damage to crops, fees and the division of pasture among users. Susanna Vela’s study of the Consell de la Terra in 1419 describes a political system in which communities used councils to defend communal resources and regulate access through ordinances. Her account places pasture rights within a wider agrarian economy, where forests, waters and meadows supported households, livestock and community revenues.^S003

Historical sources also connect pastoral decisions to the development of representative institutions. As herding and trade increased, communities needed ways to manage land, collect dues and negotiate with neighbouring authorities. Vela traces the relationship between local parish bodies, quarts and the valley-wide council, while the Consell General’s own historical introduction explains that the 1278 and 1288 Pariatges included privileges for herds to travel through neighbouring territories. The arrangements tied local pasture management to cross-border routes and broader political negotiation.^S003^S011

The surviving record should not be romanticised as an equal commons for every inhabitant. Medieval evidence often names prohoms, consuls, councillors and representatives; the voices of poorer households and people who did not hold office are less visible. Rights could be defended collectively while access remained controlled through community rules, fees, fines or status. An institution may speak in the name of a community without showing that every resident had an identical say or identical practical benefit.^S003

In a 1970 account of Andorra’s customary legal system, anthropologist and legal scholar Peter C. C. Haanappel describes several pasture categories and procedures as they were understood at that time. He distinguishes lower pastures called rebaixants, higher comunals and high pastures or areas called emprius, and explains a parish system for allocating some uses. He also notes conlloc, an arrangement under which foreign livestock could enter in summer under Andorran control and subject to a fee. These are valuable descriptions of a twentieth-century customary snapshot; the categories and procedures should not be quoted as a complete statement of current law.^S004

Haanappel also describes peixena as a grazing right that could operate between harvest and sowing in a particular cultivation arrangement. The term appears in the archival catalogue as a separate series within pasture records. This example shows how a right could attach to a season and a crop cycle rather than to permanent ownership of an entire field. It also shows why terms should be defined from their specific context: the same label can refer to a documented practice or record group without proving that all parishes used it identically.^S004^S010

Fines and damage procedures made rules enforceable. Haanappel’s account discusses the cot, a fine for a prohibited animal entry, and distinguishes it from dany, compensation for actual loss. That distinction is useful historically: an offence could consist in an animal entering a field even if the source did not document damage, while a separate claim could concern loss to crops. The article describes the procedure in 1970 and should not be used to calculate a current fine or tell a visitor how a present dispute would be handled.^S004

The archival material shows that these rules changed with the concerns of each generation. The old Comú’s archive has records of fines and penalties extending from the fifteenth to twentieth centuries, ordinances about livestock, pasture conflicts, seasonal movement, and payments connected to common grass. A 1972–75 receipt book, for example, recorded payments associated with communal herbage, cortons, breeding bulls and herdsmen. The records indicate that access could be administered through fees and specific pastoral services as well as through a general community right. They do not establish a single national tariff or procedure, and one parish’s records should not be projected onto the other six.^S010

Pastoral movements through the year

Mountain livestock depends on movement between places with different seasons and forage. Andorra’s 2000 Agriculture and Livestock Law describes the traditional farm household as combining communal grazing with privately held valley-floor plots used to make hay for winter feed. It says sheep flocks commonly moved towards Spain or France, while the family’s cattle and horses were supported through the communal pastures and hay supply. The law’s preamble is a historical and policy account, not a current census, but it clearly describes the logic of a mixed vertical system: winter fodder below and seasonal grazing higher up or across the border.^S012

The Consell General’s historical introduction explains that herds travelled through neighbouring territories and that agreements addressed transit payments, pasture use, high-mountain huts and orris, as well as animals arriving from neighbouring lands for summer pasture. Those details make pastoralism a matter of infrastructure and diplomacy. A herd’s seasonal movement depended on routes, rest and shelter, recognised boundaries, payment arrangements and acceptance by communities along the way.^S011

UNESCO’s 2023 inscription of transhumance on its Representative List recognises the seasonal droving of livestock as a living practice shared by several countries, including Andorra. The Andorran Government describes the tradition as part of both natural and cultural heritage and notes the role of herders in transmitting knowledge. The international inscription is about cultural practice; it is not a register of Andorran pasture rights, a route map, or proof that a historic movement remains operational in the same form today.^S013

The word “transhumance” can also conceal differences in species and scale. Sheep, cattle, horses and goats do not use forage in identical ways or require the same management. Andorra Research + Innovation’s pasture assessment page describes six major types of pasture and a programme examining forage production and quality, floristic diversity and livestock loads. It records more than 600 vegetation inventories across 300 sampling points between 2003 and 2015. These are study-design details: they support comparison among sampled pasture types, but not an assumption that every pasture was individually assessed or that one seasonal schedule applies across the country.^S014

The 2020 monograph presentation on Andorra’s common pastures describes subalpine pastures above the forest line as spanning roughly 1,600 to 2,800 metres and covering 128 square kilometres, or 27.4 per cent of the country in that study’s calculation. It identifies six dominant pasture types and presents pastoral units as divisions that help coordinate how different herds use forage. Such a pastoral unit is a management frame defined by resource use; it should not automatically be treated as a parish, quart or cadastral parcel.^S015

The 2020 material also explains that these pastures are seminatural: their extent and character have been shaped by people lowering the forest boundary and maintaining open ground through grazing. Its authors stress that species differ in how they use vegetation and that livestock pressure is one of the variables required for pasture management. This links custom to ecology without reducing the landscape to either. Rules about animal timing and density can affect vegetation, while vegetation quality and availability constrain the number and kind of animals a pasture can support.^S015

The research programme reported by Andorra Research + Innovation assessed forage production and quality, floral diversity and livestock load rather than using a single “carrying capacity” for the whole country. Its methods matter as much as the headline numbers: sampling points and vegetation inventories compare selected pasture types, while the assessment’s stated aim is to inform pastoral planning. Researchers subsequently worked with the agriculture department and INRAE on the forage quality of some meadow and pasture types. This progression—from mapping and inventories to tools for adapting practice—shows why a pasture right and an ecological assessment answer different questions. The former defines an entitlement; the latter helps determine how that entitlement can be exercised sustainably.^S014

The 2020 presentation also notes the challenge posed by reduced grazing pressure and rising temperatures for pasture composition and quality. In some places, vegetation can become denser as the forest edge advances; in others, drought may affect the duration and quality of forage. The research does not provide a single forecast for every valley or species. It instead points to a need for routines and stocking levels that can respond to changing phenology, forage availability and the different feeding patterns of cattle, sheep and horses. A customary calendar is therefore a record of accumulated knowledge, but it may need to be adjusted as ecological conditions change.^S008^S014^S015

Common land in current law and management

Current law keeps pastoral access connected to measured land capacity. The 2022 law for developing and diversifying the agricultural and livestock sectors states that regulations must set maximum livestock numbers per holding in relation to available surface, including pasture accessible through transhumance or transterminance rights, the volume of manure and the grazing pressure an area can bear. A separate provision promotes extensive and semi-extensive livestock numbers suited to available land so grazing, haymaking and manure spreading remain compatible with environmental maintenance. These are current statutory principles; the exact permitted number for a holding depends on the applicable regulation and evidence about its land rights.^S016

The 2020 regulation on organic production recognises that certified livestock may graze on communal land, subject to conditions, including limits related to prior treatment and the separation or management of organic and non-organic animals. The regulation also addresses transhumance and temporary use of non-organic pasture. This illustrates that communal land intersects with other rule systems: an entitlement to graze does not automatically determine a product’s organic status, and animal access can be constrained by agricultural certification rules as well as customary or parish arrangements.^S017

The 2022 law makes the connection between a formal right and an ecological limit explicit. When it sets the maximum number of livestock associated with a farm, the relevant rules are to take account of the surface available, including pastures accessible through transhumance or transterminance rights, manure production and grazing pressure. In other words, land counted as available cannot be inferred merely from proximity or a historical claim; the applicable right must be established, and the pasture’s capacity also matters. The law creates a framework for setting a permitted number, not a universal stocking rate that can be calculated from a map alone.^S016

That approach recognises pastoral rights as one input into farm capacity, not as an unlimited quantity of forage. A holding may depend on several land sources—its own parcels, parish pasture and a seasonal right elsewhere—yet each source has a different basis and period of use. The legal test therefore requires a record of land access alongside the environmental condition of the pasture. A historical use right can explain how a farm developed, but current stocking decisions also depend on the current rules and carrying conditions.^S016

Government support programmes link farming to habitat and landscape management. A 2024 amendment to the agricultural-practices regulation describes support for maintaining livestock systems, lower pastures and common mountain pastures, and for restoring or improving parcels through traditional practice where ecological value is demonstrated. The text frames support as a way to maintain biodiversity and revive agricultural landscapes, including terraces and habitat communities. It does not prove that grazing always benefits every habitat; support is tied to specified rules, eligible land and evidence.^S018

The pastoral landscape also depends on cooperation among Comuns, farmers, land users and environmental authorities. Andorra Research + Innovation’s work frames management around forage, herd structure, movement calendars and load. The Government’s 2020 presentation describes coordination between livestock keepers and Comuns as part of traditional routines. A management plan therefore has to reconcile the interests of herders with the changing quality of forage and the needs of the vegetation, rather than treating a right as an unlimited quantity of grass.^S014^S015

Shared use does not mean unrestricted access

For visitors, communal ownership can be mistaken for an invitation to use any open-looking field or meadow. That conclusion does not follow from the word “communal”. Some communal assets are open to common use, while others have seasonal, agricultural or conservation rules. A pasture in use may carry animals, fences, gates, temporary structures or private and communal rights together. Even a marked walking path does not prove a right to leave the path or enter a working enclosure.^S007^S017

The Government has published a mountain-coexistence guide prepared with all seven Comuns and the Andorran farmers’ and livestock association. Its purpose is to help mountain users understand how to behave around herds, and it presents livestock as part of landscape maintenance and fire prevention. This is practical visitor guidance rather than a legal inventory of rights, but it makes a central point visible: the mountain is a working environment as well as a recreational one.^S019

Madriu-Perafita-Claror offers one place where the layers can be seen together. UNESCO describes its communal land system as dating to the thirteenth century and identifies high pastures, summer settlements, bordes, orris, barns, terraces, stone paths and ironworking remains. The World Heritage property is a defined cultural landscape under a management plan approved by the four relevant local administrations and the Government. Its specific recognition should not be generalised into an assumption that all Andorran mountains share the same ownership history or access arrangements.^S020

Pasture remains a living resource, not only a heritage object. The UNESCO description notes that traditional agriculture in Madriu has declined and that sustaining it requires support if the landscape is to remain living. Elsewhere, the 2025 agriculture statistics record parish-level holdings and land-use categories, while the livestock department publishes head counts by species. Such figures are useful for dated questions, but they do not reveal which individual has a pasture right, where a herd moves or whether a particular claim is enforceable.^S020^S021

Reading a pasture claim carefully

When a dispute or historical claim mentions common pasture, read it in a sequence. Identify the place and its date first: the same name may apply to a mountain, a meadow or a boundary zone. Then distinguish owner from user, and determine whether the claim concerns grazing, hay, water, timber, passage, shelter or revenue. Look for the condition attached to the right: who may exercise it, in what season, with which animals and under what payment or supervision. Finally, identify the authority or archive that records the rule. Without those details, “the community owned the mountain” can be too broad to explain who actually did what.^S005^S009

Source types answer different questions. A medieval judgment can resolve a dispute between named communities at a particular moment. An ordinance can show a rule adopted by a local council. An archival catalogue identifies the types of records held but does not reproduce their full contents. A current regulation sets legal conditions for a defined activity, while an ecological study measures sampled vegetation and forage. A heritage designation explains why a landscape matters internationally. These sources can be read together, but one cannot stand in for all the others.^S003^S009^S014^S016

This is especially important when reading empriu across centuries. A deed might call it a right granted by a bishop; an ordinance might record the Comú’s conditions; a twentieth-century legal account might describe how a boundary parish used it; and a modern statutory source might deal with parish assets or livestock capacity without using the historic word in the same way. The apparent consistency of a term can hide a change in legal context. Dates, parties, geography and the type of use need to travel with the word before a reader can compare cases.^S004^S005^S007^S008

The public landscape is also not identical to a pastoral unit. A hiking route can pass through several ecological zones without following a herding calendar, and a pasture boundary may not be marked for visitors. UNESCO’s description of Madriu includes paved paths, summer settlements and pasture installations, but the property’s management plan regulates associated activities and conservation. A heritage listing may help locate the cultural landscape; it does not itself establish that a specific meadow is open for off-trail recreation or that any local access restriction has been lifted.^S020

Andorra’s pastoral system has never been just a story of livestock on open hillsides. It is also a history of negotiated use: communities preserved rights, authorities recorded boundaries, herders moved animals across valleys, and current law relates grazing to land capacity and environmental conditions. The word empriu is valuable precisely because it points to a relationship between people and resources; it is not a shortcut that settles title, access or authority on its own.^S001^S002^S005^S016