Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has stepped down from the board of African Parks, a major wildlife conservation charity, following a damaging controversy over human rights abuses committed by its rangers in central Africa. A spokesperson for the duke confirmed his departure, describing it as part of a broader governance restructuring at the organisation. Harry had served as the charity's president for six years before joining its board of directors in 2023, making his total association with African Parks a decade-long commitment.

The controversy centres on Odzala-Kokoua national park in the Republic of the Congo — a vast protected area in equatorial central Africa — where an independent review found that rangers employed by African Parks had beaten, waterboarded and sexually assaulted members of the Baka, an Indigenous forest-dwelling community, in an effort to stop them from accessing their ancestral lands. African Parks publicly acknowledged the abuses and said it had since strengthened its safeguarding processes both at the park and at an institutional level. Separately, the government of Chad ended its partnership with the organisation in August 2025, accusing it of failing to prevent poaching in the parks it managed there.

Human rights group Survival International, which campaigns for Indigenous peoples' rights globally, had been publicly pressing Harry to resign. Its executive director, Caroline Pearce, welcomed his departure but stressed it was insufficient: