First Peoples owners of small-scale land holdings face obstacles to securing their economic, environmental and community future.
Their lands often occupy high value areas of native forest with biodiverse ecosystems.
International climate and nature treaties, global development frameworks and standards for natural resource development seek to protect these assets, but they are designed for systems of scale.
Without community capacity development, and carefully designed community governance, well-intentioned global sustainability mechanisms create complexity, and can compromise the agency of indigenous communities to determine their own futures.
Fiji Context
In Fiji, the Mataqali tribes are actively pursuing pathways for their economic and social development. They are seeking ways to improve the quality of life of their communities.
For them, forestry seems like the simplest option, however it is dissonant with the global drive for sustainability.
The Mataqali desire to develop their lands has surfaced the tension between their agency, and a broader intention to conserve nature.
With markets for natural capital emerging, there is an opportunity to provide the Mataqali with access to a suite of development options that could create regenerative returns to the tribal families, as well as preserving carbon sinks and protecting ecosystems.
About this Initiative
This initiative is setting out to support the Mataqali to navigate a range of scenarios for their development.
It is grounded in the agency of the community and aims to build their capability to engage with governance systems, commercial models and the net positive pathways that could support genuinely sustainable development in Fiji.
The first supporters of this initiative were local businessmen, who have a relationship of trust with the Mataqali leaders.
Initially the focus of the collaboration was commercial forestry, and work got underway to scope the value of the leases for these lands.
In parallel, there was a process of community engagement, which began to introduce the Mataqali to other pathways for development.
Seeing the opportunity to support the development of these communities in a range of directions, these local backers have brought additional expertise to the initiative, including:
– Bluefin Investment: Design & capital raise
– Think Place: Community engagement
– Compassion Capital: Capital structuring
– Open Future Coalition: Community development
– Damun: Initiative management
Preliminary work has led to the design of a governance approach, with a steering group formed by the local businessmen who first invested in this initiative, and representatives of the above organisations.
The steering group has the support of the Mataqali and brings the capacity to organise capital and nature credit structures, and to build the capability of the community to understand regenerative ways to create value from their lands, including timber, agroforestry and ecotourism.
The steering group also has the intention to collectivise the assets of the Mataqali under a Foundation, which would actively involve community stakeholders in its governance and provide a pathway for the community to collectively own and manage the farms, businesses and forests that could be part of their future.
The way forward
A further injection of seed capital is required to continue this work with the Mataqali, define the investment opportunity and establish the requisite operational structures and governance framework.
It will also fund a more detailed and comprehensive assessment of the forest lands.
That data will help to clarify the opportunities for development of the lands, including the highest value areas for conservation.
With that information, the value stack can be defined and aligned with a capital stack, providing the groundwork for a further capital raise.
It will also fund the ongoing process of community development that will help the Mataqali to understand regenerative sources of value and engage with the systems and structures that allow this value to be tapped for their benefit.
