Mark Shuttleworth, a technology tycoon, will start paying stipends to the inhabitants of an island off Africa\u2019s west coast where he owns luxury resorts to help preserve its biodiversity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shuttleworth will pay as much as 20,000 dobras (around $958 or R15,000) annually in quarterly installments to about 3,000 people, around 60% of Principe\u2019s adult population, starting next week,\u00a0Faya<\/a>, his nonprofit, which will disburse the money, said in a statement to Bloomberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are going to give the adult population of Principe who work with us to preserve the biodiversity of the island what we call a natural dividend,\u201d Jorge Alcobia, Faya\u2019s chief executive officer, said in an earlier interview. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have any enforcement capacity, and if people decide to do other things, they will lose the dividend.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The program, Alcobia said, is the first of its kind to be run by an individual who aims at preserving a region\u2019s natural endowment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Principe is the smaller of the two main islands of the nation of Sao Tome and Principe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n UNESCO has designated Principe, part of a former Portuguese colony, and the surrounding marine areas a biosphere reserve with one of the world\u2019s highest concentrations of endemic species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n South African-born Shuttleworth, 52, began his career designing Internet security systems in his parents\u2019 garage in Cape Town. He made his fortune selling Thawte Consulting, a company he founded that helps prevent credit-card fraud online, to VeriSign Inc. in 2000 for $652 million in company stock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n