Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth Reshapes Ecotourism

Mark Shuttleworth, the CEO of software company Canonical (the developer of the Ubuntu operating system), is starting his next act as an ecotourism boss by doling out payments to the entire population of the African island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe for keeping it beautiful.

The Big Picture: Finding a pristine tropical paradise that’s also accessible to tourists is difficult in the modern era. Shuttleworth hopes that São Tomé and Príncipe not only fulfill that quest but also create a sustainable economic ecosystem that doesn’t ruin what made him fall in love with it — a controversial model that could roll back encroaching development at vacation hotspots all over the world.

Between the Palm Trees: Shuttleworth, who’s purchased and been renovating four hotels on the 55-square-mile island, wants to make sure his investment pays off for centuries to come.

• Shuttleworth is working with the government and the opposition political parties to create a unified program that pays the island’s 8,500 residents a quarterly sum to maintain the unique ecological value of their surroundings, per Bloomberg.
• The program, dubbed the “Natural Dividend,” will start sometime next year, with the payments fluctuating each quarter based on the environmental impact created by development on the island.
• How do Shuttleworth and the government plan to measure that? It’s a bit vague, but so far, they’ve been taking a detailed census, deploying drones to scan the environment, and conducting research.

Final Destination: Shuttleworth understands that his critics will smear this plan as an outsider creating a techno state that trades money for surveillance and data (fair), but he counters that it’s also underwriting the preservation of a healthy natural ecosystem that makes every citizen a paid stakeholder (also fair). Its success may hinge on how fully booked those hotels are over the coming years.