- - Prince Harry Pens Foreword to New National Geographic Book “Okavango and the Source of Life” (Exclusive Excerpt)

Lizz SchumerJanuary 29, 2026 at 10:30 PM

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Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex; 'Okavango and the Source of Life' by Steve Boyes

Misan Harriman; National Geographic

Prince Harry has written a moving foreword to Okavango and the Source of Life by Steve Boyes

The book highlights the work of the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project, which seeks to protect a region that holds special meaning for the Duke of Sussex

PEOPLE is sharing an exclusive excerpt from Prince Harry’s foreword below

Prince Harry is speaking out in support of a region he considers his second home.

The Duke of Sussex, 41, penned the foreword to the new book Okavango and the Source of Life by Steve Boyes, out March 3 from National Geographic. Featuring more than 100 photos and detailed maps, the book follows the National Geographic explorer on expeditions to the source of Africa’s famed Okavango Delta, a sanctuary of biodiversity.

The project highlights the work of the National Geographic Okavango Wilderness Project, which aims to protect an ecosystem that supports the planet’s largest elephant population, as well as lions, cheetahs and hundreds of bird species.

Prince Harry has long spoken about his deep connection to Africa. He first traveled to the continent in 1997, shortly after the death of his mother, Princess Diana, and has returned many times in the years since, both privately and publicly. “I feel more like myself there than anywhere else in the world,” Harry has said of Africa.

The Duke of Sussex is also a longtime supporter of the HALO Trust, the humanitarian organization dedicated to clearing landmines and remnants of war. The charity gained global attention in 1997 when Princess Diana walked through an active minefield in Huambo, Angola — a moment widely credited with advancing international efforts to ban landmines. In 2019, Prince Harry honored his mother’s legacy by retracing her steps during a visit to Angola, walking through a former minefield that has since been transformed into a thriving community. Harry returned to Angola in July 2025 to continue his advocacy work, visiting newly cleared sites.

Steve Boyes, author and project leader

Kostadin Luchansky/National Geographic

Harry has also shared Africa with his family. He and Meghan Markle traveled to Botswana together early in their relationship in 2016, returned to celebrate Meghan’s 36th birthday in 2017, and later visited the continent on a royal tour with their son Prince Archie in 2019. Harry also chose a diamond from Botswana as the centerpiece of Meghan's engagement ring.

"Africa's in my heart, and Africa's in my soul," Prince Harry said at an April 2024 event focused on strategies for distributing capital to support the next generation in southern Africa.

Diana, Princess of Wales visits a landmine minefield in Huambo, Angola in 1997. Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex walks through a minefield in Dirico, Angola in 2019.

Tim Graham Photo Library/Getty;Dominic Lipinski/Pool /Getty

"I first went there when I was 12, 13 years old, and after so many years, I wanted to give back to it because it had given me so much," he contined. "The vast open space, the cultures, the community, the people, the wildlife, just the freedom was a huge piece of why I loved Africa so much."

Below, PEOPLE shares an exclusive excerpt from Prince Harry’s foreword to Okavango and the Source of Life, in which he reflects on the region’s beauty, history and urgent need for preservation.

Okavango and the Source of Life by Steve Boyes

National Geographic

Foreword

PRINCE HARRY, DUKE OF SUSSEX

There are some places on Earth that are so vast, beautiful and alive, they truly open your eyes and mind.

The Okavango Delta is one of those places, an enigmatic wetland that disappears into the Kalahari Desert and is home to the world’s largest remaining elephant population — a wilderness beyond comparison. This paradise has been my second home for more than 25 years, a place to escape and be enveloped by nature’s sheer magnificence.

Back in 1997, in Huambo, Angola, just a few miles from one of the sources of the Okavango, my mother walked through a live minefield being cleared by the HALO Trust, a humanitarian land mine clearance charity. That famous walk was a turning point in the fight against these lethal devices. By 1999, the use, production and transport of antipersonnel land mines had been banned globally. Today, there are more than 80,000 amputees in Angola, a tragic legacy of 27 years of the Angolan Civil War, which ended in 2002.

A landscape view of the Okavango Delta from the book

National Geographic

When I first visited the Okavango Delta, shortly after my mother’s death, the war was still raging around the Okavango’s headwaters. Africa’s largest tank battle since World War II was fought over a bridge at the confluence of the Cuito and Cuanavale Rivers, the Okavango’s two major tributaries in the eastern Angolan Highlands. This battle left behind one of the world’s largest minefields, effectively preventing all safe access.

Nearly 20 years later, in 2015, I heard about a National Geographic expedition supported by the HALO Trust that had found a way through the land mines to the undocumented source of the Cuito River. I was intrigued.

Prince Harry and Steve Boyes

John Hilton

There the expedition team found a crystal clear, acidic source lake sustained by vast, previously undocumented peatlands. The intact miombo woodlands surrounding the lake, seemingly endless, were bigger than the whole of England.

This book is the story of the expeditions and discoveries that followed. Over the coming years, a team of 57 scientists and local guides explored all the major rivers and tributaries of the Okavango Delta, traversing this vast landscape in dugout canoes, on motorbikes, on foot, and in armored vehicles. They discovered hundreds of new species and documented 29 source lakes in what the local Luchazi people call Lisima lya Mwono — the Source of Life, where the floodwaters of the Okavango Delta come from.

A still from the book

National Geographic

As wildfires rage and hurricanes tear apart entire peninsulas, we’re faced with a harsh reality: a climate crisis and a mass extinction that can no longer be ignored. Appreciating, preserving and protecting these last wild ecosystems is essential to our collective survival.

The best way for us to understand where we came from, and where we need to get to, is by visiting places like the Okavango Delta — my source of life.

Excerpted from OKAVANGO AND THE SOURCE OF LIFE by Steve Boyes copyright © 2026 by Steve Boyes. Used by permission of National Geographic. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Okavango and the Source of Life will hit shelves on March 3 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.

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