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Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute has analyzed original acquisition and argued that some complex set of actions confers strong ownership rights on the actor. He writes as follows:
We come then to the ordinary sense of property -- and in particular to land or resource acquisition -- which is where the more difficult issues arise. In general, I follow here Nozick's historical or entitlement theory of justice in holdings, whereby at any point in time a set of holdings is justly distributed if the process by which the distribution arose was itself just, i.e., if it took place without violating anyone's rights. Holdings justly arise by (1) original acquisition (of unheld things from the state of nature), (2) voluntary transfer, and (3) redistribution in rectification of violations of the rules that apply in (1) and (2).....Here I want to discuss, very briefly, how original acquisition might be justified, how things might come to be justly acquired from the state of nature.

Here again the idea of presumptions and burdens of proof enters. Recall that in our status quo no one acts in the beginning. But the question arises, by what right are these individuals where they are in this theoretical world? The are, ex hypothesi, standing at some spot on the earth. Why aren't they trespassing? The answer, I should argue, is that no one else has a prior claim to be where any other individual is. And indeed, if such a claim should be made, the burden would rest upon the claimant to make his case. For there being, ex hypothesi, no prior action, and hence no prior act of possession, the claim would appear to be gratuitous. Property arises, then, through some (very complex) act of claiming, either explicit or, as in the case at hand, implicit -- through occurrent holding in the absence of any prior claim. Thus the presumption rests with the occupant, since others can make out no case why it should be shifted to them....

In the absence of a theory that will show precisely how it is that this "claiming" and "mixing" [of one's labor with unowned objects] serve to generate property rights in unowned things, let me simply offer a consideration against the alternative, that no private property is possible. If indeed we have a right against interference, then how would we ever realize that right if everything were public? In such a realm we would all be thrown together, as it were; there would be no private places to go to escape interference -- we would have a claim on everyone else and everyone else would have a claim on us....[I]t is our property that enables us to be free.

I want to proceed, then, by simply assuming that just as "being there first" seems to generate a property right in the status quo, so "getting there first" generates a similar right as individuals move out of the status quo. At the very least one could add that no one else has a better claim to what has been "staked out" than the person who has made the effort to do that; certainly those who have done nothing have no claim....

The tradition, at this point, is to invoke some version of Locke's proviso, that we can acquire provided there is "enough and as good left in common for others." Thus Nozick pursues, with some invention, "the crucial point," which is "whether appropriation of an unowned object worsens the situation of others."....

It is at this important juncture, I should argue, that the theory of rights must bite the bullet: the discomforting conclusions must be squarely faced, especially as they surround the so-called right to opportunity. To begin, the idea that God gave the earth to all in common, like the idea that we are God's possessions, is hardly self-evident. Absent arguments rich enough to compel assent to this proposition, the presumption must be parsimonious, viz., that in the beginning no one owns the earth -- which of course is not the same as all owning in common. Original ownership arises, then, through the performance of complex positive acts of acquisition, as mentioned above; if these have not been performed, then the earth lies unowned, not unlike the fish in the ocean. But if the presumptions are now correct, then what is the moral basis for the Lockean proviso? What right of others do we violate when we acquire as much as we want?....We can certainly understand that others have interests here; but where is the property held by others that is taken by this acquisition? Here Nozick argues that others are made worse off because they no longer are at liberty -- have the opportunity -- to acquire or use what once they could. This argument has an untuitive appeal -- indeed we see it in rich variation every day. But if the presumptions above are correct, as an argument from rights it will not withstand scrutiny. For it implies that there is a right to the conditions of opportunity, and this cannot be justified. [Roger Pilon, A theory of Rights: Toward Limited Government, unpublished PhD. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1979, p. 160-164, brackets added]