The former girlfriend of Prince Harry, Chelsy Davy, has denied allegations that her father is linked to rhino poaching in Zimbabwe, in her first public statement.

Chelsy is Zimbabwean-born and her father, Charles, is one of the country's biggest landowners. Her Zimbabwean background often provoked controversy during her relationship with the Prince of Wales's second son.

That controversy blew up again earlier this week when the British media reported that Charles Davy had connections to a poaching and trading cartel, making a fortune selling rhino horns to Chinese buyers.

This prompted Chelsy to speak out.

Davy is one of the shareholders in the Bubye Conservancy, a vast 323 000-hectare landholding in the south of the country that is home to rhino, elephant, giraffe, lion and other game

He and his co-owners have invested about R800-million in the property, which is regarded as well-run by conservationists.

"I have never made an open statement to the press, but we, as a family, cannot sit back and watch my father be vilified by a complete fabrication of the truth," said Chelsy, from the UK.

"Every member of our family loves Africa, its people and its wildlife.

"My father has been involved in conservation since I can remember. Few men are more passionate and practical when it comes to protecting and promoting wildlife."

Bubye, she said, was "one of the great modern-day conservation efforts".

At present, trophy hunting - legal in Zimbabwe - is a key part of the viability of Bubye, with wealthy foreigners prepared to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the right to shoot some wildlife, including lion, within quota limits.

The conservancy was hoping to move away from hunting into eco-tourism, a member of staff, who asked not to be identified, said yesterday.

"I personally do not like hunting," Chelsy said, but added that sustainable hunting was "a very important part of conservation".

"All allegations about my father being involved in poaching are absolutely untrue and most unfair."

The claims relate to a rhino-trading cartel allegedly headed by Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, an ambitious ally of President Robert Mugabe.

He has been blamed for the Gukurahundi massacres of the 1980s, when thousands of people were killed, almost all from the minority Ndebele tribe, who were also members of the then opposition, Zapu.

A former business partner of Davy's, Webster Shamu, the Zanu-PF information minister in the inclusive government, was also named in the rhino-trading allegations.

But Davy pointed out this week that he had sold his stake in the company he set up with Shamu some years ago.

Questions have long been asked about how Davy survived on his land when thousands of white farmers have been dispossessed and evicted by thugs loyal to Mugabe.

But he denied being a friend of Mugabe's. "Never even shaken his hand," he said.

"I have never met Mnangagwa and I know nothing of these claims that he is in the ivory trade."

He had had "enough of this nonsense", he added. "I have spent a good part of my life building up game sanctuaries and protecting wildlife.

"I doubt that you will find anyone who has done as much for the conservation of wildlife with his own money as I have."

Neither Mnangagwa nor Shamu answered their cellphones on Friday.

Davy and his staff are under enormous pressure from gangs of armed poachers invading the conservancy in increasing numbers looking for rhino.

During a shoot-out on the conservancy on Monday, one man, suspected of being a rhino poacher, was shot dead, a second was wounded, and a third escaped. A fourth man, a white South African, Johan Roos, a frequent visitor to Zimbabwe, was arrested by police later that day as he was trying to leave the country. Inexplicably, Zimbabwean police released him two days later.

Many conservationists in Zimbabwe believe that South Africans are the frontmen in poaching operations.

The Bubye River Conservancy provides sanctuary to most of the remaining few hundred black rhinos in Zimbabwe, but even this once-safe haven is now targeted by armed gangs.

On Friday, in the second attack in a week, government rangers and conservancy staff were hunting down armed thugs who had set fire to a part of the sanctuary.

"They are highly organised and we believe (they) have heavy South African connections," said a safari guide.

Raoul du Toit, the director of the Lowveld Rhino Trust, said Davy and his team were a vital cog in the ongoing effort to protect the dwindling black rhino population.

By IOL