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ABSTRACT
We analyse the main keys of the traditional agroecosystem of the palm grove (Phoenix canariensis) in irrigated terraces in Valle de Arriba in the municipality of Valle Gran Rey (La Gomera, Canary Islands, Spain). Here, irrigation water is not only associated with the land but is also being managed as a communal resource by the inhabitants. The change in the economic model from agriculture to tourism is putting the survival of this traditional agrarian system at risk (agricultural exit, population ageing and economic touristification). The need for preservation is then suggested, but the question that leads us to a re-edition of the so-called “Tragedy of the Commons” arises again: What actors should carry out this preservation? Private agents or the State, as suggested by Hardin, or the rural community, as maintained by Ostrom? We conclude that for the case studied of La Gomera, the rural community has kept managing the communal water resource but at the expense of the secular class struggles won by the farming community against the privatisation of water by private agents and/or the State.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. And this connects directly with the petit bourgeois socialism. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels (Citation1848) define it clearly:
“In its positive aims, however, this form of Socialism aspires either to restoring the old means of production and of exchange, and with them the old property relations, and the old society, or to cramping the modern means of production and of exchange within the framework of the old property relations that have been, and were bound to be, exploded by those means. In either case, it is both reactionary and Utopian.
Its last words are: corporate guilds for manufacture; patriarchal relations in agriculture”.
2. In the work Economic content of Narodism, written in 1894, Lenin refutes one of the ideas of these Russian economists. In this book, Lenin concludes that the essence of Narodism is the defence of the producers’ interests from the perspective of the small producer, the small bourgeois (Lenin, Citation1894, ed. 1974: 127–128):
“Furthermore, I make a distinction between the old and contemporary Narodism, on the grounds that the former was to some extent a well-knit doctrine evolved in a period when capitalism was still very feebly developed in Russia, when nothing of the petty-bourgeois character of peasant economy had yet been revealed, when the practical side of the doctrine was purely utopian, and when the Narodniks gave liberal ‘society’ a wide berth and ‘went among the people’. It is different now: Russia’s capitalist path of development is no longer denied by anybody, the break-up of the countryside is an undoubted fact. Of the Narodniks’ well-knit doctrine, with its childish faith in the ‘village community’, nothing but rags and tatters remain. From the practical aspect, utopia has been replaced by a quite unutopian programme of petty-bourgeois ‘progressive’ measures, and only pompous phrases remind us of the historical connection between these paltry compromises and the dreams of better and exceptional paths for the fatherland. In place of aloofness from liberal society we observe a touching intimacy with it. Now it is this change that compels us to distinguish between the ideology of the peasantry and the ideology of the petty bourgeoisie”.
3. The beginnings of the study of the agrarian question by Marx can be found in the publications in the newspaper Rheinische Zeitung in 1842 and 1843. Among the articles written in that period are those referring to the ‘Law on the theft of firewood’, as well as a text dedicated to exposing the crisis situation of the vine growers of the Moselle region, closely related to communal resources. In these writings we have a Marx who delves into ‘material interests’ for the first time. The understanding of these was definitive for him in what would later be the basis of his critique of the bourgeois society described in Capital. In this work, in its Chapter XXIV entitled ‘So-called primitive accumulation’, he dialectically presents us with the present and future of the peasant community and its communal resources (Marx, Citation1974 [1867]).
4. In the Spanish context, the past and recent works by Jaime Izquierdo-Vallina are representative of that “heterodox scientific orientation. For instance, in the book published in 2019, La ciudad agropolitana. El pueblo cosmopolita, he considers that cosmopolitan villages are those that learn to connect to the rest of the world and defends their original and genuine function of managing and conserving nature, from which they were separated by the Industrial Revolution and the conservationist and productivist theories cherished by them.
5. Communities of irrigators: the abolition of feudalism in Spain in 1811 and the passing of the water laws of 1866 and 1879, paved the way for the regulation of water carried out throughout the following century. In this legal frame, the Heredades or Inheritances will be transformed into Communities of Irrigators in the first half of the 20th century. The Water Law of 1879 opened the door to private use of water (through administrative concessions) or semi-private use with the formation of irrigation communities. These milestones, although they had an impact on La Gomera, didn’t completely do away with the ambiguity of the previous stage, a situation that has continued to the present.
6. The pioneering works on irrigation communities in eastern Spain from the Anglo Saxon School (Glick, Citation1970; Maass & Anderson, Citation1978) served as a source to the theory of Ostrom. The studies on irrigation systems in the region of the mainland’s South East have a long tradition in Spanish historiography (Burriel, Citation1971; Gil, Citation1971; López, Citation1951) and continue today (Calatayud, Citation2013; Garrido, Citation2012; Gil, Citation1993; Hernández & Morales, Citation2013; Ortega, Citation2012; Pérez, Citation2000; Pérez & Lemeunier, Citation1990; Peris, Citation1992). In the Canary Islands, the works of Reyes (Citation1989) for the island of La Gomera and Batista (Citation2001) for the North of the island of La Palma.
7. Clearly, defined borders; coherence between appropriation rules, restoration rules and local conditions; collective agreements; supervision; appropriate fines; conflict solving mechanisms; having a minimum recognition of the right to self-organization; nested structure.
8. Numerous studies have addressed this question of the water in the transition from feudalism to capitalism in the Canary Islands (MacíMacíAs, Citation1990, Citation2000; Macías & Ojeda, Citation1989; P. L. Díaz, Citation2013; M. A. Gómez, Citation2010; Nieto, Citation1969; Sarmiento, Citation2002).
9. From a geographical point of view, the Canary Islands are split into Western and Eastern Islands. The first group consists of: Tenerife, La Gomera, El Hierro and La Palma; and the second: Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, plus the small islands that make up the Chinijo archipelago (La Graciosa, Montaña Clara, Roque del Este, Roque del Oeste and Alegranza) and that of Lobos. Likewise, from a political-administrative delimitation, the Western islands make up the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, and the Eastern ones, the province of Las Palmas.
10. In the Canary Islands, the mid-altitude areas identify the strip located between 500 and 900 metres of altitude, although this interval varies depending on the slope we are on. Thus, on the windward slope, the zone could be established between 400 and 900 metres, and on that of leeward, between 600 and 1,000 metres.
11. Bureaucratic capitalism is a concept that refers to the type of capitalism that develops in the colonies and semi colonies from the second half of the nineteenth century as a result of the appearance and development of imperialism as a superior stage of capitalism. It is based on two interrelated elements such as imperialism and semi feudality. To sum up, the western capitalist countries economically jump on their colonies and semi colonies, although not leading to the same capitalist, but rather semi feudal relations (several types share-cropping, gratuitous work) which are useful to increase the colonial super earnings. Within that framework already globalized, they lean on the great landowners and the great intermediary bourgeoisie (made up of two fractions, the buyer or private monopolies and the bureaucratic or state monopolies) for the exploitation of resources, the peasants and the workers (Martín et al., Citation2019).
12. To prepare this section of the so-called ‘water war’, we have consulted various historical archives that preserve documents related to these events: the Historical Archive of the Insular Water Council of La Gomera (AHCIALG), the Provincial Historical Archive of Santa Cruz of Tenerife (AHPSCT) and the Historical Archive of the Valle Gran Rey City Council. In addition, we have carried out various interviews with local informants who experienced the events of the water war in 1947–48.
13. In a letter written by the mayor to the Governor of the Province, asking him to order the creation of a community of irrigators in the area. (File 1379, folder CR-2, year 1929. Archive: AHCIALG), the following is read.
‘ … knowing this mayor’s office that the remaining owners are not actually contrary but, due to a social backwardness spirit out of all logic, reluctant to sign on any innovation even when it is beneficial for them … ’.
14. Statement from the Corporal of the Civil Guard, 112 Jurisdiction, 2nd Company, Detachment of Valle Gran Rey to the Government Delegate in La Gomera. 11th August 1947. Archive: Civil Government of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Local office of La Gomera. Box 1; Section: Goods, works and services; Matter: waters. AHPSCT.
15. ‘Quebrador’: person hired by the community of irrigators in charge of the distribution of water, especially with regard to the control and respect of the irrigation turns of each irrigator.
16. Irrigating turn system: in this island, the use and exploitation of water was historically managed through the ‘dula’ system, but at the beginning of the 20th century it was changed to the turn system and the appropriation of leftover water. We argue that such a change was due to the gradual triumph of the interests of the large landowners in their attempt to control it with the aim of expanding new export crops on the coast (bananas and tomatoes).
If with the ‘dula’ the irrigation time was adapted to the surface of the irrigable plot, with the turn system, the time was adapted to both the size and the requirements of each type of crop. In this way, the farms of the large landowners could have greater irrigation in accordance with the extension and production of the banana, which demanded more water resources.
17. Memory of the Insular Hydrologic Plan, year 2000, pp. 61. Archive: AHCIALG.
18. Source: Memory of the MAPA GEOLÓGICO DE ESPAÑA, Scale 1:25.000, Hermigua.
19. ‘Guarapo’: sap from the Canary Islands palm tree that is extracted by making a cut in its upper tissues, after having removed the young leaves, thus obtaining a vegetable juice.
‘Miel de palma’ (palm honey): the syrup that results from the slow cooking process of the sap or guarapo.
20. ‘Dula’ irrigation system: term that comes from the Arabic Dawlaw, which means ‘turn’ (Ruiz, Citation2013). In La Gomera, the dula refers to the irrigation turn assigned to each plot. In local terminology, the expression ‘adulamiento’ refers to the irrigation days set for each agricultural grouping. Following other authors, Reyes (Citation1989) relates this last expresión to the ‘Heredades’ that distributed water according to the amount of land owned from the Castilian colonization in the 15th and 16th centuries onwards. It is a regime characterized by the assignment of water to the land and established, mainly, for subsistence agriculture, in which each basin or irrigation unit had its own water management system independent of the neighbouring ones. Regarding the definition of dula, see Glick (Citation1989).
21. In a study published in 2019, abandoned terraces already accounted for 75% (Romero et al., Citation2019).
22. Since the beginning of the XXI century, studies have begun to be carried out on the traditional irrigation of the fields in the Peninsular Southeast, similar to those of La Gomera, due to three main reasons: their abandonment and/or urban occupation, the discovery of their heritage values in danger of disappearance and the sustainable nature of the natural resources used in these complex agrarian systems (land and water) (Furió, Citation2011; Hermosilla et al., Citation2012; Martínez & Esteve, Citation2002; Ruiz, Citation2013).
23. Huge public resources have been allocated to the construction of numerous interpretation centrescentres of the local vernacular culture for tourists. Today, in most cases, they are closed buildings: the Honey Bee House in Las Rosas, the Craft Centers of Valle Gran Rey and Vallehermoso, the Black Canary Pig Building in Valle Gran Rey, the Palm Syrup Interpretation Center in Alojera, the Cheese and Grazing Interpretation Center, located in the closed Insular Cheese Factory, in Alajeró.
24. Gestión y Planeamiento Territorial y Medioambiental S.A. (Gesplan) is a public company dependant on the Department of Environmental Transition, Fight against Climate Change and Territorial Planning of the Canary Islands. Constituted in 1991, it specializes in management, urbanization, planning and environment activities (https://www.gesplan.es/).
25. The Tragsa Group, whose capital share is entirely public, is made up of the companies Tragsa and Tragsatec. It is part of the Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (SEPI) and the Institutional Public Sector of the Spanish State. Its mission is to make available to Public Administrations efficient solutions that contribute to the management of their needs in the environmental field, rural development, resource and process management, or through the adaptation and application of the experience and knowledge developed in these areas to other sectors of administrative activity, in a sustainable and safe way (https://www.tragsa.es/es/).
26. In a more recent joint work by Ostrom (Dietzl et al., Citation2003), she begins to see the need to combine the governing of the communal resources between the peasant community and the state. However, articles prior to this work from 2003 (Acheson, Citation1989; McCay, Citation1988; Pinkerton, Citation1989) spoke of comanagement or cogovernance of community and State.