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Towards sustainable land management: a tool for describing and holistically understanding property interests Property ownership rights are well managed and understood in developed countries. They are backed by long standing theoretical, legal and institutional frameworks. Over the last fifty years new land interests have emerged. Created by governments in response to environmental degradation, the pressures of globalisation and concerns for social equity, these interests lack holistic theoretical and legislative frameworks. Examples include the alienation of land for use as national parks, the unbundling of water rights from private land and the reallocation of land rights to indigenous people. The new interests are often poorly designed and administered; this creates confusion and ultimately results in lesser adherence by the community. If we are to achieve sustainability objectives the management of these new interests needs to be improved. Holistic theoretical, policy and administrative frameworks must be developed that enable coherent, integrated management of all land interests. As a first step in this process, this paper introduces the property object, a tool for describing, comparing and classifying all interests in land and natural resources using five key attributes: the objective, actions regulated, spatial extent, duration and the people impacted. The property object was developed by analysing all the legislated land interests within the three levels of government in Australia; federal, state and local. The tool can be used to determine the importance of a particular land interest and consequently sheds light on the type of administration that will be required. It prescribes what information must be recorded and made available to the public when a new interest is created and also identifies interests which might need to be managed together. The tool is not intended to be a panacea for all problems relating to the management of property interests. It is a first step in achieving a holistic shared understanding of land, as we begin redesigning our land administrative systems to better achieve sustainable development objectives