ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the reasons for the continuing existence of common land in lowland and upland Switzerland; the characteristics of the diverse organisations owning common resources in the Swiss lowlands and highlands in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A conclusive solution acceptable for all parts of Switzerland was in fact never arrived at due to the extreme variation of situations from one canton to another, especially when the situation in the mountain regions is compared to that of the lowlands. Communal land might belong to a peasant community or a hamlet, which was often the case in the French speaking part of Switzerland as in the canton of Vaud, but also in the Grisons. In fact, forest degradation was a problem everywhere in Switzerland, and the restrictions on wood allocations and the attempts to restrict other uses of the forests can also be observed in regions where rights of access were personal rights.
