African Parks faces human rights scrutiny as Prince Harry exits board

Prince Harry is leaving the board of African Parks, the wildlife conservation organization he joined in 2023 after serving as its president. The departure, announced as routine board reshuffling, arrives at a moment when the NGO faces serious allegations of human rights abuses by its armed rangers against indigenous communities across the African continent.

Harry's involvement with African Parks began in 2016, when his public profile and passion for elephant conservation made him a valuable asset to an organization seeking international attention and donor funding. His royal status opened doors. But according to Dutch journalist Olivier van Beemen, who has spent years investigating the organization, both Harry and African Parks have come to see the relationship as a liability. The prince's well-documented family disputes no longer enhance the NGO's reputation or fundraising prospects, while the organization's mounting human rights controversies have become an uncomfortable association for him.

African Parks operates under what it calls a delegated management model: African governments hand over long-term control of protected areas to the NGO, which then manages conservation, infrastructure, tourism, and anti-poaching operations across 24 parks spanning more than 20 million hectares in 13 countries. The arrangement gives African Parks extraordinary power. It employs armed rangers authorized to use force, manages border controls in some locations, and effectively exercises state-level authority within park boundaries. Van Beemen describes it as a "state within a state." For African governments, the model solves a practical problem—the NGO brings international funding, expertise, and personnel to areas many nations lack resources to manage independently.

But this concentration of power has created conditions for abuse. In 2023, members of the indigenous Baka community at Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo reported violence, torture, and sexual abuse inflicted by African Parks rangers. The organization commissioned an investigation by the London firm Omnia Strategy, which eventually led African Parks to acknowledge certain instances of human rights violations—but only two years later, and without making the full report public. The Congolese government, despite having signed the management agreement with African Parks, was never shown the investigation findings. To this day, the full scope of what occurred and how many people were harmed remains unclear.

Van Beemen's research, documented in his award-winning book "Beasts and Men," uncovered a pattern extending beyond the Congo case. He interviewed former rangers and affected communities across multiple African countries and identified what he sees as a fundamental problem: African Parks applies the term "poaching" loosely, treating subsistence hunters—locals killing animals for their own consumption—the same as professional poachers supplying international criminal networks. In Zambia, former rangers described to him how people detained on such grounds faced beatings and severe torture.

The organization's history compounds these concerns. African Parks was founded by Dutch businessman Paul Fentener van Vlissingen, who according to van Beemen held dismissive views of African capabilities. A former associate told the journalist that leadership believed Africans lacked the money and management skills to protect their own natural resources. In its early years, headquartered in the Netherlands, staff would study maps of Africa planning where the organization could expand—an image van Beemen found uncomfortably reminiscent of colonial-era territorial ambitions.

African Parks has rejected van Beemen's characterization, calling his book riddled with "hundreds of factual inaccuracies" and "deeply misleading statements." The organization points to its zero-tolerance abuse policy, ranger training on human rights standards, and complaint mechanisms. It notes that some alleged abuses occurred outside its direct control and emphasizes that it operates under contracts signed in good faith with African governments. It also highlights that 64 percent of its managed areas have local populations living within them, and that 90 percent of parks allow legal resource access.

But without independent verification and genuine transparency, those claims remain unverifiable. The investigation report from the Congo case has never been made public. African Parks has promised reforms while acknowledging past failures in its systems, yet it continues to resist full disclosure. The organization receives funding from European and German sources, making the accountability question relevant far beyond Africa. As Prince Harry steps away, the central tension remains unresolved: how can an NGO wielding state-like power over vast territories and armed forces be held accountable to the communities it affects?