BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM
For centuries, the tiny West African island of Príncipe was a place where nature was exploited and people were brought in chains to work it. Today, the descendants of those laborers are being paid to protect it.
The Faya Foundation, funded by South African tech billionaire Mark Shuttleworth, launched what may be one of the most consequential conservation experiments on the planet: a quarterly dividend paid directly to islanders who agree to follow an environmental protection code. Nearly 3,000 people, more than 60 percent of Príncipe’s adult population, have signed up, and the first payment of €816 (approximately $890) has already been delivered.
For agricultural worker Kimilson Lima, 43, it’s already changing daily life. “With this money we can have a proper floor in the house,” he said. “And an inside toilet.”
An island shaped by extraction
The island earned its nickname, the “African Galapagos,” for good reason. Separated from the African mainland by more than 160 miles of ocean, Príncipe developed rainforests unlike anywhere else on Earth, where giant land snails and crabs were once among the top predators. New species are still being discovered there today, including a previously unknown owl found during a recent scientific expedition.
That biodiversity has always been fragile. After Portuguese colonizers built a cacao plantation economy and independence came in 1975, the industry collapsed. Communities descended from Angolan and Cabo Verdean laborers were left to subsist on what they could grow or forage, which increasingly meant pushing deeper into the forest and cutting trees. Conservation and survival were in direct competition.
Turning stewardship into income
Shuttleworth, who first visited Príncipe in 2010, saw a different path. “The normal path to development for Príncipe would be to cut down forest and grow ‘fair trade’ peppercorns,” he said. “But we want to reward them as stewards of their precious environment.” His total commitment to the project stands at around £87 million (approximately $110 million).
The Faya project is designed to make that stewardship concrete and consequential. Dividends are reduced if unauthorized tree-felling is discovered. The foundation is also funding school improvements, reorganizing the island’s dormant cacao trade, and offering financial literacy support, a practical recognition that many residents have never held a bank account. “We have to explain that it’s not free money,” said project CEO Jorge Alcobia.
The road to this moment wasn’t without skepticism. “They’ve been let down in the past,” Alcobia said. “They didn’t expect us to keep our promises.” Felipe Nascimento, president of the self-governing region, offered a more direct read on what has been built: “This will be truly transformative, both for nature and for the people.”
Generations of knowledge, now with a paycheck
For some residents, the project has opened entirely new futures. Yodiney dos Santos spent years foraging in the forest; now he leads scientific expeditions into it. He’s also candid about the fragility that the project is trying to address. “My ancestors came here from Angola,” he said, “and, for food, they brought the edible West African snail, which then escaped. Now those snails are pushing out the endemic Príncipe snails.” Protecting this ecosystem isn’t abstract. It means actively managing the mistakes accumulated over generations.
A model worth watching and questioning
Not everyone is convinced. Edmundo, who is now selling cacao to the project after years of having no buyer, welcomes the economic access. But another resident raised a pointed question at a community gathering: “It’s a monopoly — is that good? And what if everyone buys motorbikes and chainsaws?”
It’s a fair tension to sit with. The Faya model works only as long as the money keeps coming, and right now that money flows from one person’s fortune. But Shuttleworth is explicit about the larger ambition: “If it’s successful, I hope other irreplaceable ecosystems might benefit from the idea at scale.”
On Príncipe, the question of whether paying people to protect nature can outlast its founding patron remains open. What’s already clear is that the old forced choice between a livable life and a living forest doesn’t have to be the only option on offer.
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