Common mountains are, like seeds, folklore or free software, good examples of commons.

They all count on a community to autonomously manage a good in a collaborative manner by establishing rules to guarantee its sustainability.

Common mountains in Galicia represent a property modality and goods management breaking the classic dichotomy of pubic against private, by introducing a collective property alternative. The specifcity of these mountains is determined by the fact that the holders of the property right are the regular inhabitants of the land; besides, it is important to stress how these communities have been able to create the rules to guarantee the sustainability of this good.

Despite the inherent importance of this modality of commons, a process of dismantling has taken place for a long time with the goal of privatizing these goals. This process was refected in the shortening of the area of these 18.000 mountains from between 1.8 and 2 millions of hectares in Galicia to the current 640.000 hectares.