Galician communal forests are private lands collectively owned by the neighbours of the rural settlement where they are located. Their societal role shifted from the support of the traditional agrarian system in the past, to a variety of situations nowadays. The intrinsic characteristics of these social-ecological units make them a promising opportunity for rural development in the region that calls for more scientific attention on the arena of ecosystem services. In this study, we investigated the social perception and valuation of a comprehensive range of ecosystem services and disservices on the peri-urban communal forests of Mount Xalo (NW Spain), distinguishing among the perspectives of landowners and various visitor types. For this, we used a socio-cultural approach consisting of 175 semi-quantitative surveys that included a basic Public Participation Geographic Information System. Our results showed that Mt. Xalo is a well recognised provider of ecosystem services that constitutes a local hotspot in the region. The most frequently perceived and most valued ecosystem services within ecosystem services classes were the provision of drinking water, the practice of sports, climate regulation and a group of three cognitive cultural ecosystem services: socializing, mythical features and sense of place. Nevertheless, nuances were noticed among landowners and visitor types following a rural–urban gradient where landowners and urban users presented the most significant differences. These findings address recognition to the actual role of these communal forests for society and call for collaboration with public institutions to facilitate the sustainable management of their resources.

加利西亚共同森林是由其所在的农村居民点的邻居集体拥有的私有土地。他们的社会角色从过去传统农业制度的支持转移到如今的各种情况。这些社会生态单位的内在特征使其成为该地区农村发展的有希望的机会，要求在生态系统服务领域给予更多科学关注。在这项研究中，我们调查了Xalo山区（西班牙西北部）城市郊区公共森林中各种生态系统服务和损害的社会认知和评估，以区分土地所有者和各种访客类型。为了这，我们采用了包含175种半定量调查的社会文化方法，其中包括基本的公众参与地理信息系统。我们的结果表明，Xalo是公认的生态系统服务提供商，构成了该地区的本地热点。在生态系统服务类别中，最常被感知和最有价值的生态系统服务是饮用水的提供，体育锻炼，气候调节以及三类认知文化生态系统服务：社交，神话特征和位置感。但是，在城乡梯度变化之后，土地所有者和游客之间的细微差别被注意到，其中土地所有者和城市使用者的差别最为明显。