ABSTRACT
The burden of this book is to explore the potential and appropriateness of using property rights as a tool in the realization of sustainable land use. Ken Lyons et al have shown in Chapter 11 of this book the historical connection between rights and obligations within land title and the way that a community's formulation of its property title should be prudently informed by the prevailing understanding of what constitutes the best mix of rights and obligations. Spike Boydell has likewise illustrated in Chapter 6 the complexity of rights and obligations within Fijian property. The authors generally agree on the potential for well-considered obligations, crafted into the very foundations of property, to provide desirable outcomes for the community. While these claims are well articulated and recognized as an obvious necessity by many in the environmental movement, they press for changes in the institution of property that are outside the modern conception of private property. For centuries property has been formally understood to be a private right whose erosion would be a major civil attack on the rights of the individual. Richard Weaver (1948) described obligation-free private property as a ‘metaphysical right’ that was being attacked in his country and its demise would spell the end of his nation. His view was an extension of the English Lord Blackstone who earlier described property as:
that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any individual in the universe. (Blackstone, 1769)
