Popular member of the United Kingdom royal family, Prince Henry of Wales also known as Prince Harry, has been appointed as new President of African Parks, the organization that manages Akagera National Park among other facilities on the continent.
The news that was announced on Wednesday, indicate that in this position, Prince Harry will be working with African Parks in various capacities to advance wildlife conservation across Africa and around the globe.
The announcement was made during this morning’s BBC Radio 4 Today programme, which Prince Harry guest-edited.
African Parks is a conservation NGO, founded in 2000, that manages national parks and protected areas on behalf of governments and in collaboration with local communities across Africa. With 13 parks under management, they have the largest area under conservation for any one NGO on the African continent.
African Parks are the managers of Rwanda’s Akagera National Park, the only savanna park with the central Africa’s largest protected wetland.
According to a statement Kensington Palace, on leaving the Army in 2015, Prince Harry has taken a deep personal interest in frontline conservation projects that work to protect Africa’s natural heritage and support both wildlife and local communities.
The statement says that Harry spent three months working on number of such projects in Namibia, Tanzania, South Africa and Botswana.
“Prince Harry will be working with African Parks in various capacities to further our mission in managing national parks on behalf of governments, and to advance wildlife conservation across Africa and around the globe,” a statement from African Parks reads in part.
African Parks has previously worked with Prince Harry in Malawi in July of 2016, where he served as an integral part the organisation’s team, “in helping with one of the largest elephant translocations in history.”
In Malawi, Harry, he served as part of the expert team and helped implement the first phase of the ‘500 Elephants project”-where 520 elephants were moved over 350 kilometres across Malawi among three parks under the management of African Parks.
Since its management of Akagera National Park, was taken over by African Parks, the park has seen a number of development, including restocking it with the Big 5, through trans-locating lions and rhinos to the park.
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