Inside Prince Harry's efforts to preserve African parks
The British royal is expanding the amount of protected land in Commonwealth nations.
In 2016, Prince Harry flew over a forest reserve in southern Malawi called Mangochi. He was shocked by what he saw. Though the reserve borders one of the country’s most popular safari destinations, it looked badly deforested and neglected. People had started moving in past the park’s borders. “These communities are encroaching way beyond where they should be and this whole place is on fire,” he recalls thinking. (See stunning images selected by Prince Harry showing the beauty and power of trees.)
Malawi, a sliver of a country tucked into the borders of Mozambique, Zambia, and Tanzania, straddles the environment of both southern and east Africa. The electricity-poor region is reliant on charcoal for energy and reportedly has the highest rate of deforestation in the region. As conservation groups begin to tackle this crisis, a royal effort hopes to exert enough pressure to keep the indigenous forests preserved.
On Monday, three years after Prince Harry made that first flyover and urged Mangochi’s protection, he made an announcement: Mangochi Forest Reserve and Liwonde National Park, which sit side by side, had officially joined the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy. Under the scorching sun the Duke of Sussex welcomed some 300 square miles of nature into his grandmother’s initiative. The plaques indicating the new designation are mounted on the stone entrance to Liwonde, beneath a metallic tree crafted from confiscated poachers’ snares.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2019/09/prince-harry-plants-tree/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social::src=linkedin::cmp=editorial::add=li20191001hist-newhistprinceharrytrees::rid=&sf220481794=1
No financial contributions yet though.
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They use their role to try to help people. 