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1° 42'03.4 N
7° 24'12.9 E
Nature is usually in its best condition where people have looked after it for generations, and those same places often have the fewest ways to earn a living. FAYA was set up to change that, by preserving nature, using innovation to provide a Natural Dividend, empowering communities and changing behaviours, and creating impact that lasts.
Nature pays out every day. Clean air, fresh water, a stable climate, food. Everyone draws on it. Almost nobody pays in.
With the Natural Dividend we change that. It pays the people who keep nature intact, so that protecting it becomes something you can live on rather than something you give up.
Nature is not what progress has to be protected from. It is what progress should be built on.
Príncipe Island in West Africa is where that stops being a phrase. FAYA was founded there in 2024, and the first Natural Dividend payment was made in February 2026. Satellites, drones and field teams track what the forest is doing, and that measurement decides what gets paid.
Príncipe is the proof, not the limit. What works here is built to be used elsewhere.
Príncipe is one island. The vision behind the programme is bigger: what happens when protecting nature becomes a normal way to earn a living, anywhere it is needed.
A vision only holds if it survives contact with reality. We measure what actually happens, we listen to the people it happens to, and we change the programme when the numbers tell us to. That is what turns it into a model other places can take, rather than a story only we can tell.
What We Do.
Three pillars, four areas of work, one island to prove it on.
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