In the heart of the, almost 1,500 meters high, the only 90 residents of the Asturian town of Santa María del Puerto (exemplary town of Asturias in 2021) have disputed for more than two centuries with the Leonese town of Cabrillanes for the use of almost seven hectares of grass. A litigation that will now reach the Supreme Court after the National Court has failed in favor of Leon interests. In its ruling, for which the Asturian council would lose that extent of territory, the Court dismissed the administrative contentious appeal presented by both the City Council and the Autonomous Executive against the decision to accept the demarcation that Cabrillanes defended, adopted by the Ministry of Territorial Policy in 2019.
The opinion endangers something more than attachment to the earth. Because, although the pastures will remain of their current owners, if their jurisdiction stays in León, the affected Asturian farmers would lose a lot of money from European aid. In the farmers they receive almost two million euros from (PAC). The aid corresponding to the Natural Park is just over 94,000 euros, with an average of a farmer of 805 euros, which represents almost 5% (4.93%) of the total PAC aid they perceive.
The beginning of the conflict
Everything starts with a document dated September 13, 1785, when a demarcation was made that gave rise to a royal execution (final sentence that is deposited in the Royal Chancery Archive of Valladolid). The ruling, of 1788, ended a litigate lawsuit between the deputies and attorney generals of the Council of Laciana (León), with José García de Atocha, general attorney and neighbor of Piedrafita de Babia (León). The disagreement had to do with several terms that divided the jurisdiction of the Babia Council and Piedrafita place, with that of Laciana and Villaseca.
In that demarcation a neighbor of El Puertu de Somiedo, named Ventura Feito, intervened without the presence of the judge of the jurisdiction. Feito was another neighbor of El Puertu without legal status of any kind. It wasn’t even Neighborhood of the place, that is, the person in charge of guarding the town during the winter months when the Puertu transhumuated the low brañas (councils of Belmonte and Salas). Nor in any other document states that it is the judge of the jurisdiction, therefore, it had no capacity to make that legal demarcation.
Ventura Feito has few news from the historical point of view. He appears reviewed in a 1743 document when his father died and in another of 1760 where he consists of a neighbor. The following writings where news of Ventura Feito appears are in a sale of a house of the year 1780 and as a witness in a testament of the year 1787. In both it is stated that the man “does not sign because he does not know how to write.” The question is why this man went to a demarcation of jurisdictions in which the judge of the preserve would have to be and where that man was the competent authority. Was he faced with the residents of El Puertu? Was it coerced? It was 1788 and it is impossible to know how the neighbors worked and how they could manipulate them.
The fact is that this lawsuit marked demarcations that give León the benefits that it could obtain, for example, in terms of common agricultural policy. There are almost seven hectares of pastures between Asturias and León, land bought in 1923 by José and Domingo Lorences Fernández. These neighbors of El Puertu bought the brothers “Coalla de Grao, Asturias”, the Montes de l’Ordial, L’Arbeḷḷosa and La Veiga the window for a price of 1,000 pesetas. They subsequently sold them in notarial deed dated January 9, 1925 to 63 buyers and 11 neighboring verbal drivers cowboy of El Puertu by 2,220 pesetas.
Neighbors and governments
“The interpretation of the National Court seems very curious and particular. We are in the year 2025 with a demarcation of councils, provinces and autonomous communities based on a document of 1785 and 1788 in which a neighbor of El Puertu arrived without the presence of the competent somedan authorities where it is clearly seen that he was on his own. Not everyone had the same legal guarantees in 1788 and now in 2025 Somedana Nuria González Alonso, author of Socio -economic cartography of a high mountain town: Santa María del Puertu (Somiedo). “The descendants of our ancestors cowboy We will try to defend some mountains that always belonged to Somiedo and Asturias. ”
For Azucena Lorences, deputy mayor of Somiedo and neighbor of Santa María de El Puerto, the judgment of the hearing is incomprehensible: “If every time an old document appears in Spain, the easements must be modified, thousands of demarcations would have to be changed.” And the mayor of Somiedo, Belarmino Fernández (PSOE), remember that to modify the provincial limits an organic law in the Cortes must be approved.
For all these reasons, the Asturias government will file a appeal before the Supreme Court against the National Court Judgment. In the opinion of the Minister of Territorial Planning, Ovidio Zapico (IU), there are sufficient legal foundations for the prospect process to prosper, despite the difficulty of the procedure. “From the Government of Asturias we support the claim of the City of Somiedo and share, both the enthusiasm of its mayor in the defense of the territory and its interpretation of the judgment of the National Court, which we understand does not fit what the representative of Asturias wanted to express that 240 years ago did not want to sign the act of the Royal Executory The biosphere does not lose seven square kilometers of territory.
A reaction that has not been received with surprise at the City Council of Cabrillanes. Its mayor, Emilio Martínez Morán (Unión del Pueblo Leonés), described for this newspaper the appeal of the Principality as “a legal game.” After being satisfied by the National Court’s Judgment, the councilor said that the decision of the Asturias Government “is an ordago” and asks the director Zapico and the mayor of Somiedo to tell the truth to the farmers: “Both give them false expectations because the reason only has a path and those lands were historically of cabrillanes and the only thing we do is defend our interests. corresponding allegations to continue defending our territory. ”
