The nature of access to land use. Common forms of land tenure are owner-occupied farms, and tenancies which basically involve payment (in the form of labour, cash, or share-cropping) to the landlord from the tenant. A plantation is owned by an institution and uses paid labour. Collectives may own land together and work together, sharing any profits. Under traditional communal land tenure systems in Ghana, the direct descendants of a landholder inherit their rights without losing them to a larger group (Asbere (1994) J. Black Stud. 24, 3). Formal land tenure laws and regulations can be conceptualized as ‘one of many state simplifications which have the character of maps’ (J. Scott 1998). ‘In the hands of powerful lawgivers, such legal “maps” not only summarize “reality”; they also have (intended and unintended) transformative effects’ (Larsson (2007) Pol. Geog. 26, 7).