Prince William has connections to the Kenya-based Craig family going back decades. He remained close to Jecca Craig and prioritized time with Jecca even years into his marriage to Kate. William is also close to Jecca’s father, Ian Craig, even giving Ian “The Prince William Award for Conservation in Africa” in 2022. Ian Craig founded the Northern Rangelands Trust through the Lewa Conservancy and USAID in 2004. The Lewa Safari Camp is where William allegedly proposed to Kate. Well, the Mail’s Richard Eden has a very curious story about Ian Craig and he’s connecting it to William.

Few, if any, families matter more to Prince William. Partly because he remains bewitched by ‘the Balmoral of Africa’ — as Lewa, their 62,000-acre patch of Kenya, is sometimes known. And undoubtedly because of his personal bonds with Jessica ‘Jecca’ Craig, often considered his first serious girlfriend, and her father, Ian Craig, on whom he personally conferred his eponymous Award For Conservation in 2022.

So the Prince will be distraught to hear of Craig’s abrupt and anguished departure from the Northern Rangelands Trust he founded in Kenya 20 years ago. Since then it has created one of Africa’s most successful rhino sanctuaries and persuaded governments to ban the sale of ivory, thereby sparing innumerable elephants from slaughter by poachers.

In an excoriating letter announcing his resignation from the Trust — a network of 43 previously separate groups which he painstakingly stitched together — Craig makes a series of damning allegations. He claims that the Trust’s financial controller was removed ‘without good reason’ and roundly criticises the way the board has behaved. Describing himself as ‘utterly disheartened,’ he also alleges the decision to move to a new headquarters ‘disrupts’ a communications hub ‘where hundreds of thousands of dollars have been invested’ and accuses the CEO of making ‘inappropriate statements’.

William will be dismayed. It was in 1998, on one of his earliest trips to Africa, that he met Craig who inspired his fascination with conservation. William’s youthful romance with Jecca, a dazzling brunette, intensified his passion for Africa. Although the relationship cooled when William went to the University of St Andrews, their friendship remains strong. Jecca attended William’s wedding to Catherine Middleton — to whom he proposed while staying at Lewa in 2010.

The Trust rejects all of Ian Craig’s allegations. But he has fierce support.

‘We as a community will stand by him,’ one Kenyan ally tells me. Another assures me that Craig ‘has been the backbone of the organisation’.

Time, surely, for Wills to plan a peace-making visit to the place which has such a hold on his heart?

[From The Daily Mail]

It sounds like whoever is making decisions for the Northern Rangelands Trust is making some very strange decisions. But isn’t that person Ian Craig? What’s really going on here and why is William’s name being thrown around? This feels like something we should bookmark and save for later, because the full story is probably going to be a lot messier. William’s name is being brought up for a reason. His connection to Jecca is being brought up for a reason. William is being associated with what sounds like a major kerfuffle involving conservation. Hm.

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