Harry’s secret sanctuary
From saving elephants and rhinos to finding true love, this is the place closest to William and Harry’s hearts, says Graham Boynton
IHAVE this intense sense of relaxation and normality here. To lose myself in the bush with what I would call the most down to earth people on the planet, people with no ulterior motives, no agendas, who would sacrifice everything for the betterment of nature…’ Those were the words of Prince Harry after a recent trip to Africa. He has come a long way from his wild youth.
To many of us, Africa represents a safari destination that offers a once-in-a-lifetime holiday but to Harry and his brother William, it has become a precious sanctuary, a retreat that offered them comfort after their mother’s death, and has since become a second home.
Both princes have embraced the continent’s wide open spaces, its wilderness and its wildlife with a fervour that many conservationists believe will help save Africa’s endangered species. ‘You can’t exaggerate their importance in Africa’s conservation wars,’ says Charlie Mayhew, chief executive of Tusk Trust, the wildlife charity of which William is patron.
Harry says: ‘[Africa] is where I feel more like myself than anywhere in the world. I first came in 1997, straight after my mum died. My dad told my brother and me to pack our bags – we were going to Africa to get away from it all.’
That trip established an enduring passion for the continent. William began travelling to Lewa Downs, the wildlife sanctuary run by Kenyan landowner and conservationist Ian Craig. ‘My children were the same age as William and they became firm friends,’ says Craig. ‘We established a lifelong friendship from there.’
William spent some of his gap year at Lewa and dated Craig’s glamorous daughter Jecca, his first serious girlfriend. At the same time he developed an on- the- ground knowledge of rhino and elephant poaching, which for decades had blighted Kenya and neighbouring countries. It was this knowledge that convinced him to become Royal patron of Tusk Trust.
Lewa Conservancy has developed dramatically since Craig started it as a 5,000-acre rhino sanctuary in the mid- 1980s. It is now spread over 62,000 acres, has World Heritage Site status and, according to Craig, William’s role in its development and international recognition has been crucial. ‘He has been a massive conduit between conservation here on the ground and the Western leaders he is interacting with on a daily basis,’ says Craig.
However, William’s attachment to this remote Kenyan o u t - post was as much personal as i t was about pure conservation.
He d e v e l o p e d an enduring friendship with the Craig family and their friends. In 2008 he flew to Lewa Downs to attend the wedding of Craig’s son Batian and later attended Jecca’s big day too. And in 2010, William proposed to Kate Middleton at Rutundu, a remote lodge just a short helicopter ride from Lewa. It is easy to see what attracts the Prince to Lewa. With Mount Kenya as the backdrop, its endless rolling grasslands and flat-topped acacia trees provide the perfect ecosystem for rhinos, lions, elephants, cheetahs, wild dogs, and the world’s largest population of the endangered Grevy’s zebra. At the Lewa Safari Camp, you can relax on the veranda with a G& T, watch t he sun set over the gol den gr a s s l a nds and listen to the sounds of the wilderness. As night falls, you sit around a glowing campfire as lions roar across the open plains and perhaps a herd of elephants will pass silently through the camp, giant ghostly shapes illuminated by the moon. Meanwhile, Harry cemented his love of Africa during his gap-year trip to Lesotho. So moved was he by the plight of the ragged huddles of dirt-poor children he met – many of them AIDS orphans – that together with Lesotho’s Prince Seeiso, he formed the charity Sentebale.
The charity is now ten years old and has expanded i ts brief to Botswana. Increasingly, Botswana has become the focus of Harry’s attentions. As with William, he has combined his love of the country with a desire to be involved in wildlife conservation.
And early last year he also spent several weeks in Malawi working with the non-governmental organisation African Parks.
He helped catch, anaesthetise and load elephants on to trucks before moving them to heavily protected areas. It was the single biggest land mammal translocation ever.
Describing conservation as ‘God’s test’, he asked: ‘If we can’t save some animals in a wilderness area, what else can’t we do?’
Soon afterwards he followed in William’s footsteps and became
Royal patron of a wildlife charity – Rhino Conservation Botswana – which had been launched the previous year. RCB’s founder Map Ives says he was humbled to have Harry on board. ‘He knows well that rhinos can be a standard bearer for the conservation of entire species.
‘ I know his passion and his grasp on the situation on the ground, and his understanding of the importance of wildlife to communities and to humanity’.
SOUTHERN Africa is one of the last wild habitats where African rhino have survived – there are an estimated 25,000 bl a c k a nd white rhino left on the continent. However, in recent years international poaching syndicates have been killing them for their horns at a rate of more than 1,000 a year. If this killing goes on, extinction of the species is on the horizon. So, as with elephant, the translocation of rhinos to safe areas in taking place, where they are monitored and under 24-hour surveillance by armed guards.
Map Ives believes Harry’s involvement will bring international awareness of the work RCB is doing in Botswana, not to say much-needed funding.
Harry has been eager to share his love for Africa with those close to him. Soon after spending time with Map Ives fitting track- ing devices to rhinos in 2016, he took Meghan Markle – now his fiancee – to spend a few days at Meno a Kwena, a remote camp on the edge of the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park.
Owner Hennie Rawlinson kept the Royal visit so secret that even his business partners had no idea the couple were at the camp.
When the story finally broke in the media, Meno a Kwena was wrongly described as one of Botswana’s luxurious £1,500-a-night safari camps favoured by Hollywood stars and mega- wealthy Wall Street financiers. In fact, it is far more modest in price and facilities, and insiders see the Prince’s choice of Meno – a lovely rustic, 16-bed camp and the location of Africa’s second largest zebra migration – as evidence of his deep connections with, and u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f , Af r i c a ’s unspoiled wilderness.
The engagement of the two princes in Africa has also been welcomed by experts such as Colin Bell, founder of Wilderness Safaris and Great Plains Conservation. He believes the initiatives the brothers are supporting and the benefits their international celebrity bring are going to have a long-term impact on Africa’s wildlife. ‘William and Harry are taken very seriously,’ he says. ‘They grab attention. And they’re putting wildlife conservation on the international stage.’
In particular Bell cites William’s role as the driving force behind the Elephant Protection Initiative, an international campaign launched in 2014 in the wake of the London Conference on Illegal Wildlife Trade. Says Bell: ‘ To agree to no trade in endangered species for ten years – that was such a pivotal moment and I don’t think people fully realise how that set the tone.’