Property rights can be held by private entities or by the state, and by an individual or a group. Property rights experts generally identify four basic kinds of tenure or ownership (FAO 2002:8):
- Private, or owned by an individual, corporation, or institution;
- Communal, or owned in common by a defined group of individuals, such as a village, tribe, or commune;
- State, or owned by the government;
- Open access, or owned by no one.
The term
