It's regulation in a great many countries about the globe that mining lease data is recorded and made available to "the public", eg: in the US this is largely handled by the BLM: https://www.doi.gov/ocl/blm-lands-leasing
As to the existantial nature of your question, you might try The Evolution of Resource Property Rights by Anthony Scott, perhaps look back to Roman Doctrine and how their laws carried forward in Western civilisation, look to Chinese history, etc.
The intent of the regulations is to record who is searching for what and where (ie. can be contacted and are responsible for property damage, spills, destruction, etc) to have one prospecter per parcel, etc.
Can you point out a country where it is explicit that the intent is that (say) Rio Tinto has to directly list head office on every lease in the country and cannot spin off a copper division, an iron subgroup, a rare earth exploration subsidiary, etc?
As to the existantial nature of your question, you might try The Evolution of Resource Property Rights by Anthony Scott, perhaps look back to Roman Doctrine and how their laws carried forward in Western civilisation, look to Chinese history, etc.
There's a brief narrow overview of some of that here: https://www.pheasantenergy.com/mineral-rights-history/ and a whole lot has been written about "The Commons", etc.