On 18 Jun 2003 08:35:13 GMT, Nick Maclaren wrote:

In article ,
Annabel wrote:

(1) Then surely the plants belong to the crown therefor you would
have to get royal assent to harvest from them

In the same way that you do to walk along the road, yes. Think about
it a little more - "The Crown" is both a pseudo-person and a complete
legal fiction, depending on context.

(2) If the crown has for some reason kept ownership of wild plants
and animals why did it not have the foresight to retain ownership of
mineral rights for it would have major implications re oil, gold etc.

You are improving. Full marks for deduction. No marks for homework.
That is precisely what the situation is in the UK - I do not own the
mineral rights under my house or the air rights over it! As I am
under an airport flight path, the latter could be useful :-)

I believe that English and Scottish law differ, but in ways that are
completely baffling to most lawyers, let alone laymen.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

As an aside, the law is just that in Austria, if you own the land(or the
rights to it), you also own the minerals and everything under it to the
centre of the earth. I'm sure the air above is not considered the same way.
If you strike oil or gold on your land it's yours. The water in or under
your land is yours, etc. In the centre of Linz, there's a hill that's
ridled with natural tunnels that were extended by the Romans and others.
These belong to the people who own the houses and land directly above(even
though there is no direct access from the land above), and they
traditionally used them to dump thier household waste into for decades.
Then came WWII and the German forces wanted to use the tunnels as a
regional command bunker and also for air-raid shelters. So far so good,
except the people above wouldn't have anywhere to dump thier rubbish so
they were offered free refuse collection for ever in return for the use of
the tunnels. That situation still remains.
Tim.