Its key finding is that rural communities are in danger of involuntarily losing millions of hectares of their common properties to investors. This is because many governments sustain conditions by which they make themselves the legal or effective owners of rural lands which are unsettled or uncultivated. They do this on grounds that such lands are unowned and unutilized. This contradicts the reality that these lands are the longstanding collective assets of individual communities, in accordance with communityderived norms (customary law) and that these resources represent a used and pivotal support to individual communities, whether settled, pastoral, or huntergatherers.