Not even two weeks ago, Chad’s government made a splashy announcement which garnered international headlines. The announcement? They were withdrawing from their arrangement with African Parks, an enormous NGO which operated parklands and conservation efforts across a dozen African countries. You see, Prince Harry is on the board of African Parks and Prince William is big mad about it. You see, Africa belongs to William. William said that to Harry: “Africa is MINE!” And William and his henchmen have been trying to harm and/or colonize Harry’s work in Africa. William’s allies took over Sentebale and convinced Sophie Chanduaka to say some pitiful lies about Harry. But for years, William has angled to hurt African Parks and I still sort of believe that there was something else – something Scooter-King-related – going on with that statement from Chad. But now it looks like those efforts have failed, because Chad has reinstated management rights with African Parks.
Chad has reinstated management agreements with African Parks, the conservation group whose board includes Britain’s Prince Harry, and begun talks on new deals for joint management of ongoing projects, the environment ministry and the charity said on Friday.
The move reverses last week’s decision by the Central African country to break ties with the organisation.The two parties said they had engaged “in a spirit of dialogue and cooperation” and restored the agreements “with full effect” while both sides negotiate new partnership agreements for Zakouma National Park, the Ennedi Natural and Cultural Reserve, and the planned Aouk project.
African Parks will continue to finance and co-manage protected areas in Zakouma and Ennedi and keep advancing the Aouk project until new agreements are signed, the statement said.
Chad announced last week that it was ending the organisation’s mandates, citing a resurgence of poaching, under-investment, and alleged breaches of contract. African Parks said at the time it was seeking discussions with the government.
The European Union’s delegation to Chad said in a statement last week it had suspended implementation of grant-funded actions for at least 90 days, citing “force majeure,” after the environment minister moved to terminate management and financing agreements.
The EU asked African Parks to safeguard EU-financed infrastructure, equipment, and vehicles for potential transfer, and requested updates on talks with Chadian authorities to assess contractual implications. The African Parks Network manages parks in a dozen African countries.
In case you think I’m impossibly and stupidly conspiratorial about this, let me just say that this news of African Parks’ reinstatement in Chad has barely made any news in the British media. They don’t want to acknowledge it, and yet they were gleefully loud about “bad news for Harry’s charity” when Chad first cut ties. Just before this news, the Telegraph even ran another attack piece on Harry: “Africa has turned its back on Prince Harry.” The piece is all about how African Parks is doing amazing work in twelve countries but people in African countries hate Harry, for reasons! (Because Africa belongs to William!) Anyway, the sounds like *someone* convinced Chad’s environmental minister to do some sh-t for the headlines and then all hell broke loose and Chad’s government realized that they actually needed the EU grants and African Parks’ management for their parks and reserves. Love that the EU cited force majeure as well.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
