Profit and Carbon Fund Conservation. Automatically.
Between 1% and 5% of net programme profit across all 66 operating SPVs, alongside the 1.75% Torqua sustainability reserve, is transferred to the Mentawai Conservation Foundation every year as an irrevocable founding obligation. Crucially, MCF also holds 100% of the ring-fenced carbon rights to Siberut's rainforest expansion (MCF-REDD-01) and marine sanctuary restoration (MCF-BLUE-02) - generating 1.18M tCO2e/yr by 2047 and US$566.7M (Base) to US$1,031.7M (Upside) in 20-year carbon cashflows, paying back the US$250M 5-year conservation buyout budget 2.3x to 4.1x over from carbon credits alone.
Nine Members. Independent Governance.
The MCF will be governed by a nine-member Legacy Trust with independent oversight - designed so that the conservation mission survives every leadership transition and ownership change the programme will experience over 100 years. The Trust operates across four jurisdictions: Singapore for financial management, Indonesia for ground operations, the USA for philanthropy, and Australia for research.
Aspiration Becomes Obligation
Many development programmes make conservation commitments. Most of them are aspirational - subject to board approval, profit levels, and shareholder goodwill. The Mentawai Conservation Covenant is different. It is a founding obligation audited on the ACTA registry, not a discretionary policy. Zero MCF conservation credits are ever used to offset commercial SEZ footprints; the programme cannot generate returns without simultaneously funding its conservation mission.
"Governance is not compliance. It is the architecture of trust."
The Conservation That Protects the Investment
The covenant is not philanthropy. It is the mechanism that keeps the island worth protecting - and the destination worth visiting.
