Many of the Sandlings heaths owe their survival to their continuing status as common land. People have fought hard battles (literally as in Walberswick's 'Bloody Marsh') to retain these spaces for the use of commoners and other people in the face of attempts to exclude them from their rights. The Sandlings group and particularly Suffolk Wildlife Trust's Sandlings Project works in partnership with landowners, commoners, local authorities and other interested parties to help manage the remaining heathland commons.

Common land is different from other property because the ownership of the land has traditionally been subject to 'rights of common' held by other individuals over the same area. These rights where they exist, entitle persons possessing such rights (commoners) to use a range of the products and characteristics of that land. The wide range of activities covered by such rights including the grazing of stock (pasture), collecting of timber, brushwood or fern (estovers), taking of fish (piscary) or turf (turbary) have their origins in local custom. In each parish the local economy, geography and balance of power have all played their part in shaping highly localised patterns of common land over much of England and Wales. These have been handed down through nine or more centuries. The status of Common Land is enshrined in law, the latest being the Commons registration Act 1965 and The Countryside and Rights of Way act 2000.

(From 'Good practice guide on managing the use of common land'. DETR 1998)