African Parks is a non-governmental organization (NGO) focused on biodiversity conservation through protected area management, established in 2000 and headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa.

[24][25] Msimang, who once served on the Military High Command of Umkonto we Sizwe and is former CEO of South African National Parks, is as of June 2021[update] Emeritus Board Member of the organisation.

[34] Plans for the company started forming after van Vlissingen met with Nelson Mandela in 1998,[36] and early supporters included the U.S. Department of State and World Bank.

[37] The first protected areas to be managed by the company were Majete Wildlife Reserve and Liuwa Plain National Park, starting in 2003.

[12] African Parks entered into a memorandum of understanding with Chad's government in February 2015 to establish Ennedi as a protected area, which became a Natural and Cultural Reserve.

[48][49][50] Prince Harry assisted with the translocation,[9] which was done in partnership with the Malawian Department of National Parks and Wildlife, and funded largely by the Nationale Postcode Loterij.

[52] The allegations include rape, torture, and forced evictions of the Baka Indigenous people in the Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo.

[53][54] As the allegations were reported upon again in 2024 and after an unnamed board member was alerted by Survival International, African Parks announced that they had launched an investigation through an external law firm.

The Financial Times reported that the organisation through American and European donors has "quietly accrued management control of 22 parks in 12 African countries, with a total area of 20mn hectares".

[59] In November 2024, new allegations emerged involving a group of women who had been promised a meeting with a high-level African Parks manager to discuss the destruction of crops by elephants.

Following the manager's failure to attend the meeting and subsequent to the women's complaints the eco guards allegedly "forced them to leave by whipping them and beating them, which led to a woman being actually trampled on and losing her baby.