indiown

Ownership and Control related: indigenous

Ownership

My thoughts on 'ownership' are that the term MUST truly reflect 'equitable control'. Equity I expect has the same meaning as your term 'capital investment' - i.e. Who legally has ownership of the business structure? Such legal ownership would entitle that person(s) to share in the financial rewards arising from the business by way of dividends as compared to receiving wages or other remuneration which is a reward for working (personal exertion) or interest paid to an investor. 'Control' refers to the 'seat of power' - Who is (are) the person(s) steering the direction of the business and making the overall decisions as to who provides the day to day management and to whom this management must report ?
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In New Zealand for example, 'control' of a company is set at 75% - this being the level required to pass special resolutions which are required before a company may legally enter into 'major' transactions, pay the equity owners dividends and ultimately place itself into liquidation/wind up.

Of course, different countries would likely have different levels at which these decisions can be made and so it may not be feasible to set one arbitrary percentage on an international basis. From New Zealand's perspective 30% would be seen as a substantial minority interest - although 30% would have the effect of 'control' from a negative perspective given that such an interest would be sufficient to prevent such decisions being made!

Furthermore, many Indigenous operations in New Zealand are actually operated through Trust structures (which are peculiarly British in origin) and which are quite suited to the Maori concept of shared inter-generational ownership amongst extended family groups.

Trust structures DO NOT have an 'equitable control' nor a capital investment base at all. Instead they have 'elected' Trustees who 'hold and deal' with the Trust assets ON BEHALF of the Trust's Beneficiaries. Therefore the Trustees themselves do NOT own the operation/business (really they are just fiduciary managers) while the Beneficiaries possess an 'equitable' interest in the operation/business meaning they can only question the Trustee's management but otherwise have no legal right of access to the assets. For Maori, Trusts embrace the concept of 'Kaitiakitanga' - guardianship. So, in this instance there is no percentage but quite clearly it can be demonstrated that it is Indigenous owned.

However, Trusts as a concept are completely foreign to say Asian cultures who may well have their own style of business structure accommodating widely held ownership.

TOKENISM is always a major concern and I believe that the question of 'ownership', as it relates to this Award, should show that the REALITY of each Entrant's control of the business' fundamental decisions (not day to day operations) are determined by Indigenous peoples.

One could also question 'ownership' in light of say a married couple, one of whom is indigenous, the other not. Their business, on the face of it, might be held either 100% by either party or held equally - 50/50. In New Zealand, the common law of ownership would otherwise state that in a dissolution of the (marriage) partnership the ownership of the business would be assessed as being 50/50 - regardless of how it might otherwise be held. Therefore in this situation the question might be raised, "Is the business Indigenous owned"?

It may well be as important to understand how the operation is owned not just who owns it, i.e. sole owner, partnership, company - private / public, trust etc.

The ownership test may therefore best be a combination of a 'demonstration' together with a 'percentage' as this may produce a fairer assessment than meeting a 'threshold' test.

Should a threshold be required then I would consider that nothing less than 51% would be needed to the threshold for something to be considered 'owned'.

I would repeat however that I consider the key point to the question of 'ownership' in relation to this Award as 'control'.


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That is exactly why I was surprised about the winners last year. I'm glad to hear this winner's insider's take on the award and topic. I am not always sure that Indigenous awards are in line with Indigenous traditions of community, ownership and control and state recognized ownership. Therefore I agree wholeheartedly with the suggestions:

Should a threshold be required then I would consider that nothing less than 51% would be needed to the threshold for something to be considered 'owned'.

I would repeat however that I consider the key point to the question of 'ownership' in relation to this Award as 'control'.

It makes it more difficult to judge but makes us expand our thinking and considerations to consider more than website PR instead of the multiple complexities these awards must address.


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My comments on ownership: - Control is really the essence, and it may have different meanings in each country. As we want to support and build the capacity of indigenous and local communities, and as we want to strengthen their mastery of Web 2.0 and marketing tools, it would not be fitting to train non-indigenous players. The point of the exercise is to allow ILCs to take control of tourism as an alternative, potentially biodiversity-friendly livelihood and awareness raising tool. - I'm not sure if setting the bar at 51% will solve all possible problems (there could still be cases where control is elsewhere even if 51% belong to ILCs, financial/technology/market access control could still be in non-indigenous hands), but it's a good start. However, we may need to take a case-by-case approach: for instance, Posada Amazonas in Peru is 60% owned by Rainforest Expeditions, but a contract increases the ILCs' take 20% every year over 5 years (it's at 40% now). The conception of the business plan, and the fact that all management control is in the hands of the indigenous community, would make it a good candidate throughout, and in fact giving them the means to access information technology at THIS stage may be critical to ensure a smooth transition (just an example, they did not apply yet). For larger corporations (may be the case of some Canadian lodges), a majority stake can be around 30% if each other owner does not have more than 10%, say. - The issue can be taken from the positive side (who can apply) but also from the negative (who should not apply). What we want to avoid is businesses where the operations are run by non-ILC partners, and where decision making does not depend on ILCs. Even with 40%, Posada Amazonas' Ese'Echa community is fully part of decision making and there is an ongoing co-management scheme (http://www.perunature.com/pages/pa_about7_1_1.htm). If they were to apply, I'd defend their participation. In other words, we may consider accepting nominations from ILC tourism operators that are not yet fully owners, but whose business plans and contractual arrangements clearly lead towards that.

More later and I'm happy that our jury is so well versed in these issues - this adds value to the award. It is exciting to learn that, from 2002 (when there were hardly indigenous tourism owners at all, and the main concern was to protect ILCs from undesired/unplanned tourism development) to 2009, so many ILCs have decided to take ownership of tourism technology.


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To add my R0.02 to the conversation, this issue is closely related to something South Africa has been grappling with since 1994 when the first democratically elected government put an end to the apartheid-era systemic racial preferences for whites. The process of "transformation" generally seeks to realign participation, ownership and receipt of benefits in the economy (and other spheres such as health, education, etc.) to reflect the proportional population in the country - by race, gender and other dimensions (e.g., disability). With regards to the economy, a policy/programme called "Black Economic Empowerment" was developed by the government and implemented for more than a decade, and adjustments to the policy were made to increase the breadth of the benefits that accrued through transformation, which is known as Broad-Based BEE, or B-BBEE.

The reason I bring this up is that each of the major economic sectors in the national economy was obligated to draw up a transformation charter which outlined the measures and targets that would bring the various businesses in that sector into compliance with the trendlines for achieving transformation. Targets were set over a many year period, allowing companies to adjust and find their own way - but find their way they must. (At a future point, non-compliant businesses are likely to face penalties). In tourism, there is a website for the Tourism Charter that outlines what worked for the tourism industry here in South Africa. Some of the indicators they chose (and how they measure and weight them) may be relevant to the discussion here, particularly in teasing apart questions of ownership, strategic representation and employment equity. This is not all that different from the kinds of charters that other economic sectors developed (e.g., mining, etc.)

The project in South Africa is far greater in scope than the indigenous tourism projects/businesses/organisations we're focussed on with this award, but it does aim to identify, recognise and give preference to many of the same factors. Hope this is helpful, and doesn't muddy the waters further.