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This paper describes the results of fieldwork regarding environmentally friendly land-based commons that are legally classified as unbounded lands. In Orcines, over 800 hectares of land situated within the Auvergne Volcanoes Natural Park are subject to this legal regime, which concerns plots of land that have never been delineated on the cadastral map even though the owners have exclusive and unburdened property titles. Essentially, owners do not know where their land is located within a larger cadastral parcel of land, yet they are not legally considered to be joint owners or tenants in common. As a result of their improbable situation, however, the only way in which owners can use their elusive property is by implementing a form of collective governance of their lands. When this happens, private property becomes the nucleus of a land-based commons.