As Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were in New York City Thursday night to collect another award that got them lots of publicity, the California-based son of King Charles III also was the subject of headlines about a new scandal involving his controversial African conservation charity.
Ahead of the couple’s appearance at the Project Healthy Minds gala, which named them “Humanitarians of the Year,” the government of Chad issued a “draw-dropping” document involving African Parks, for which Harry has been in a leadership position since 2017, The Spectator reported.
The document explained Chad’s reason for cutting ties with Harry’s South Africa-based organization, which has been mired in scandals in recent years over its management of large nature preserves for African governments. The scandals include allegations in 2024 that its employees at several other parks in Africa raped and tortured local people, according to FTM, a non-profit investigative news site in Europe.
The government of Chad has alleged that Harry’s nonprofit used its authority over Zakouma National Park to essentially enrich itself, while failing in its mandate to protect giraffes, buffaloes and critically endangered rhinos, as reported by FTM.
Chad’s action against African Parks was first reported by The Times, which quoted the country’s environment minister, Hassan Bakhit Djamous, as saying that African Parks, displayed a “recurring, indelicate and disrespectful attitude towards the government.” Harry currently serves on the board of directors. Chad also alleged serious breaches of contract and financial irregularities involving African Parks, including keeping unaudited accounts and not being transparent over how funds were raised, managed and spent.
In addition, Chad alleged that African Parks illegally collected tourism revenues, used tax-haven bank accounts on the Isle of Man and transferred capital and foreign exchange abroad “to the detriment of Chad and in flagrant violation of national banking and tax regulations,” The Times reported. The Environment Ministry said that African Parks prioritized tourism over conservation, failed to invest in essential equipment for rangers and banned local residents from access to certain areas in their communities.
When reached for comment on these allegations, a spokesman for Harry, the Duke of Sussex, told People they had “no comment.”
African Parks released a statement, saying, “African Parks has initiated discussions with the ministry to understand the government’s position and to explore the best possible way forward in support of the continued protection of these critical conservation landscapes, as well as to ensure that the significant conservation and social gains achieved over the past 15 years, are sustained.”
For Harry, Chad’s termination of its relationship with African Parks comes months after he was mired in controversy involving another African charity. He resigned from the board of Sentebale, a charity he co-founded, after publicly raising concerns about its management. But that prompted its chairwoman to hit back and accuse him of using the nonprofit as a vanity project, along with also making claims about widespread bullying and harassment. While Harry and other board members were cleared of those allegations, Britain’s Charity Commission still criticized them for letting a “damaging” boardroom battle play out in public.
As for African Parks, Harry was first named president in 2017 before getting a promotion in 2023 to its governing board. In this position, it’s believed that he would have assumed greater responsibility for management and strategy, the Times reported. However, as of now, there’s no suggestion that Harry had any direct or personal involvement in African Parks’ alleged irregularities in Chad, according to The Spectator.
Still, this latest controversy bolsters a view that Harry has “a white savior complex,” as demonstrated by his approach to charity in Africa, The Spectator said. The outlet noted that he and his estranged older brother William argued over their involvement in various African charities, with William favoring community-led programs whereas Harry thought that top-down intervention was more effective.
African Parks was founded in 2000 by rich Europeans and Americans like Harry. Their stated aim is to protect endangered wildlife, such as elephants and rhinoceroses, from poachers and other hazards, while making the nature preserves financially and environmentally sustainable. But, according to the FTM investigative news site, African Parks leaders also expressed the conviction that African governments were incapable of managing their parks themselves, with a former board member taking that view to an extreme by saying in 2023: “We would run the park and make sure there were enough funds, because those Black people couldn’t do that.”
To Harry and others, his media profile could be positive for organizations like African Parks, “when the mood takes him” to get involved, The Spectator said. But “we also live in an age when African countries and organizations are understandably wary of the idea of the white savior, cheerily appearing from America or Europe and suggesting that they, and only they, have the savvy to sort out problems that have persisted for generations.”
The Spectator concluded its piece on Harry’s African Parks problem by saying that the prince “is far from a malicious man – except perhaps where his family are concerned – but he is a thoughtless and arrogant one, as we have seen time and time again.” This latest scandal involving one of his African charities “is a reminder that blundering in amateurishly can cause trouble,” The Spectator said.