At FAYA we link Economic Reward with Ecological Responsibility

We empower and engage communities

The programme only works if the people who live there want it to, so we build it with them. What local communities already know about looking after their environment goes into the work alongside newer conservation methods, rather than being replaced by it.

We run workshops and training so that people have the skills to care for their own surroundings. And because the money from conservation goes to the people who do the protecting, the work belongs to them rather than to us.

We reward and protect through paying a Natural Dividend

Protecting nature should not cost the people who depend on it. It should pay them. The Natural Dividend is a direct payment for the work people do to keep nature intact, and Príncipe Island is the first place we are paying it.

That changes what conservation is. It is no longer a list of things you are not allowed to do, and it is not charity either. It is a way to earn something from looking after the place you live in. What we learn on Príncipe is what makes it possible to do the same elsewhere.

We research and innovate

Every decision rests on what the data shows. We use satellite imagery, drone surveys and work on the ground to track what is really happening to the forest, to the wildlife and to the people who live there.

Those same measurements tell us where our approach needs to change. They also turn the programme into something other places can take and use, because the results can be shown rather than claimed.