1On the south shore of the western Mediterranean Basin, mountain forest ecosystems are 2 degraded, mainly due to their overexploitation. Topographic, edaphic and climatic conditions 3 create stressful growing conditions and sensitive ecosystems. Nonetheless, in these 4 ecosystems, forests remain an important resource for the subsistence of local populations. 5Historically the vulnerability of this resource has prompted mankind to establish traditional 6 control forms of forest and pastoral areas. These common resource management systems are 7 still functioning in the Moroccan High Atlas Mountains under the name of agdal which refers 8 to the territory, the resources and access rules laid down by the local population in order to 9 manage the territory. 10The estimation of land cover changes was a suitable method to evaluate the effectiveness of 11 these community-based systems for forest conservation. In this paper we highlight the impact 12 of this traditional management on woodland dynamics in a mountainous area (Aït Bouguemez The results indicate that in the past 38 years, forest ecosystems have been affected by a 21 relative decrease of 20.7% of the total forest area, and 8.7% for the mean canopy cover 22 percentage. However, strong disparities in forest dynamics arose according to the agdal or 23 non-agdal status of the forest. Significant progression in canopy cover is noted in controlled 24 agdal areas but large degradation has occurred outside. Regarding the stand ecological 25 4 conditions, we observed significant differences in the stand structure, according to the 1 management mode. We suggest through this study increased recognition of customary forest 2 regulations, which may be adapted and extrapolated to other communities. However, from an 3 ecological point of view, the agdal system alone is not sufficient to reach a viable 4 management mode in the long term. 5 6