it was a big job, yeah. you've already talked about the pressures, the balance between man and nature. offer of financial aid from the g7 how, in thatjob, did group of world leaders to help fight you preserve the forest, the fires in the amazon. given that one of the key industries brazil's president has in gabon is derived from logging said he won't accept aid and timber trade? unless the french president you have to go back withdraws remarks jair bolsonaro has a little bit in the story. taken as insults. in 2002, i met omar bongo who had been president of the country for a long time. was president of the country for over a0 years. yes. and we could call him if, a succession of women have i don't know if you'd quarrel voiced anger and defiance in a manhattan courtroom, with us, but an african dictator. telling their stories of sexual i would quarrel with that. abuse by the late financier, jeffrey epstein. i would call him an african chief, myself. one woman said he had shown the world what a depraved dictator is a very hard and a very negative word. and cowardly human being he was the president in a one—party system for 20 years and then he was by taking his own life. he was the president purdue pharma, the american in a multi—party system pharmaceutical giant with elections and he won that makes the opioid oxycontin, the elections and when he died, is reported to be offering between $1042 billion to settle i was actually in a climate change thousands of lawsuits against it. negotiation in bonn when he died purdue has already settled and i headed back to gabon. with the state of oklahoma over when i got back to gabon, the opioid crisis and a judge has ordered a big payout the queue to pay respects in front of his coffin went three times from johnson & johnson. around the presidential palace and they'd had to open the gates because theyjust couldn't deal with the numbers of people. so i think dictator is unfair.

now on bbc news, hardtalk. can the west african state of gabon save its environment? welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. our planet is haemorrhaging natural we'll revisit your relationship with the ruling family later, resources at an alarming rate. because it is important because it's politics and you are now a senior and important minister biodiversity is under threat in the gabonese government, as forests are felled, so we'll come back to politics wild animals illegally hunted. because, of course, the bongo family my guest today is on the frontline still rules gabon through the son of the effort to conserve and protect what remains. of omar bongo, ali bongo. but ijust want to come back first of all to forestry. because it seems to me it's a very important test case of what you have tried to achieve in your career. so explain to me, given we know that gabon is systematically corrupt, there is endemic corruption in gabon, and we know that illegal logging is a lucrative business, how you as director of national parks, tried to fight that. lee white is the newly—appointed environment minister in the west african state of gabon. a country famed for its tropical when omar bongo created the parks forests, its elephants and gorillas. system, there was forestry but also notorious for systemic corruption and inequality. in all of the protected

so can gabon find a sustainable areas of gabon. and gabon was going balance between the needs the way of ivory coast. of man and nature? ivory coast today has 3% theme music plays. of its forests left. lee white, welcome to hardtalk. 80% of its parks have hello. been deforested. and when we showed omar bongo beautiful national geographic photographs of the natural treasures of gabon, something clicked. a spark, a catalyst went off. and within a couple of months we'd created 13 national parks, preserving some of the most beautiful and the richest parts of gabon. you first went to gabon as a research zoologist, a young student. you became a conservationist, an environmental campaigner and yet here we sit with you as a government minister, minister for the environment in gabon. how did you get seduced, if i may use that word, into the murky world of politics? jacques chirac, who was president of france at the time, came and tried to convince omar bongo that it was a bad decision. conservation is about people, the french had big logging not about wildlife, really. if people aren't involved, interests in gabon.

leave the gorillas and elephants and the biggest critics of the parks were the foresters. when ali bongo ondimba became president, the first thing he did was to ban the export of raw timber, of unprocessed timber, and within two months to look after themselves and they'll be just fine. president sarkozy was in gabon trying to convince him he had leave the forests to grow made the wrong mistake and they'll be fine as well. and that is was a silly thing to do. in a planet where people are churning out carbon dioxide and the amazon is starting to burn and poachers are coming in and decimating wildlife, it's dealing with people that's the difficult part of conservation and dealing with people is politics. but i'm just guessing with your background as a zoologist, a man who spent a lot what omar bongo did was try of time out in the field, to shift the paradigm in nature, often pristine nature, of development in africa. britain, china, the us, i'm guessing that perhaps you didn't have all been developed on cheap, actually like dealing raw materials from africa. with people that much. and if we're going to develop yes, i started as a anti—social biologist. african countries, if we're in my first five years going to find the balance in gabon i barely came out between the preservation of the forest so i and the sustainable use barely met anybody. of these natural resources, over the years i went at least a good proportion of the wealth that comes from being a zoologist to botanist from the exploitation of those to archaeologist, that natural resources has to come started bringing me a bit back into africa. more towards people. and then at a point there was a choice, do i keep on studying the forests and the wildlife whilst they disappear? or do i move in to a much more active conservation role?

you felt it was as urgent as that? absolutely, yeah. and so the reason that, i guess, that i'm a government minister as well as a conservationist today is to find that balance, you can't do conservation in isolation, you are part of a system. if you look at the way the planet is going and the way africa's wildlife is going, it's a crisis. and some people do manage just to keep studying. but i couldn't do that. a lot of people won't know gabon. it's a relatively small country but to come back to my point in terms of population. i know it's very sizeable, about how prepared you are to take but it's fewer than 2 million people on vested interests on the atlantic coast of africa. which are undermining the efforts you and others have made why gabon for you? in the country to preserve you'd had no connection there. and protect, i'm very mindful, for example, that here you sit as environment minister, your predecessor was sacked because of a scandal involving the illegal cutting down and trading of precious timber to the tune of some say hundreds of millions of dollars. some of this timber was found as a biologist, i was looking for the place where i would see in containers inside gabon.

the gorillas and the elephants the vice president ended up and the chimpanzees and wildlife, losing hisjob over this. something like it would've been like before humans had high—powered your predecessor, the environment minister. so i'm suggesting to you that your rifles and started eliminating everything. job is going to involve you taking and so it really was random drift on some very powerful in a way, i decided to do a phd, vested interests. i've been doing that i wrote to all of the eminent scientists around the world who were studying how for years in gabon. forestry impacts wildlife which is the subject i decided i've been fighting the illegal ivory to study, and i got one letter back trade, where you're dealing and it was from a british woman, called caroline chuton, with even terrorists groups. i've been fighting illegalforestry. who had been in gabon we've only had two cases of illegal for about ten years. forestry inside the national parks the railway had opened up the rainforests of central gabon of gabon in the last decade. to forestry and caroline wrote i've been fighting illegal gold. back to me and said, "come along, we really need to understand what the impact of this increased pressure between those three illegal industries, i was dealing with maybe on the forest is going to have." $300—400 million of turnover and some very unpleasant organisations and people. by 2009, a decade ago, and we managed to do it. one of the reasons we managed to do you had been appointed to be that is because i had very strong support from the president himself. the chief, the boss, of the gabon national parks agency. a very, very sizeable operation. because i think there are, what, 13 national parks in gabon. something like two—thirds or more of the country is covered in forest. 00:05:56,690 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 so you've got a big territory...

but the question, partly, is whether you've been successful. i should say, the two politicians you have always denied their involvement in this wood scandal, but nevertheless they lost their jobs. but it goes beyond wood. it involves the trading of ivory because people may know that gabon has one of the most important populations of forest elephants in the world. gabon has 10% of africa's forests and today, tragically, we have 60% of the forest elephants because they've disappeared everywhere else. but my point, i guess, is despite your best efforts, and you've just outlined how committed you were to protection, i'm looking at figures here. according to the data i've seen from reputed scientists, in the 1980s, gabon had between 60,000 and 65,000 forest elephants. today it's believe to have perhaps 25,000 or fewer. so it has lost most of its forest elephants. today we have about 45,000. really? we don't like to give that figure very often because we think it might attract the poachers, actually. but even if you take the optimistic figure, you have lost what, say 20,000? it's not an optimistic figure. i'm a scientist, you know, at the base. i'm one of the world experts

on forest elephants. well, then i will take yourfigure... if you have a look at any of the publications, we certainly do have, we have 60% of the 90,000, 95,000 forest elephants that are surviving. we lost 25,000 forest elephants in a gabon between 2006 and about 2012, 13—111. it was — we think it could be directly related to the cites decision in 2006 to allow illegal trade of ivory. and there's a very big debate going on right now at cites as to whether or not we should once again allow countries to sell ivory. and that sent a signal to the poachers and poaching just... actually poaching and with the gold price going up around the world almost exponentially, ivory and gold, kind of, exploiters moved into the forests of gabon and the government wasn't ready.

that was a failure. it was a failure for the gabonese government and for the conservation community. the government didn't have a national park service at that point and all the conservation money was going to international ngos. and we all failed, collectively. i see your response was interesting. you decided, in essence, to declare this a war. i mean, you exponentially increased the number of park rangers, you gave some of them weapons, you talked about a bloody conflict with the poachers. you said, "we have become paramilitary. we've had to turn biologists into soldiers, policemen, and spies. i've gone from professor white, the scientist, to being a sworn in police officer." yeah, i never thought

that was going to be my path in life, but... but is it working, that's the question, is it working? those elephants are still there. those parks are intact. and we're moving out of the parks, creating good governance of natural resources outside of the parks. there's this strong motivation to establish natural resource governance. we're realising, everyone, that if we don't get it right we're going to end up like central african republic, for example, where 35 years ago car was a tropical paradise like gabon, and then the poachers moved in from the north, from chad, sudan, they killed the rhinos and then they killed the elephants and they killed the big game and then they killed the small game and they became bandits, robbers, rebels. there's a very clear link between natural resource governance in africa and peace and security. and so...

and clean governance, too. exactly, yeah. if you plot a graph of elephant numbers against some measure of good governance or low corruption, you get almost a straight line. what about two other things that you have specifically said you believe can be helpful. one is more tourism. you've sort of blown the trumpet for getting more visitors into gabon, which, again, might seem counter—intuitive to a commitment to protection and conservation, and, secondly, palm oil. you seem to be a big fan of expanding palm oil operations in gabon. we need to develop our country. we have a raising population. we're a country that has been, for a long time, living on an oil—based economy. and, as you see the amazon forests burning on the news, you realise that there isn't a future for oil—based economies

with climate change. and so gabon has to diversify its economy. oil palm is just a fact of life. it is the most productive oil—producing plant that you can grow in the tropics. but it does suck up, as we've seen in countries like indonesia, vast tracts of virgin forest. it comes down to management. where do you do oil palm? do you do oil palm in degraded areas, in savannah areas? or do you do it in pristine rainforest. in gabon we have a national plan that only allows oil palm in the most degraded habitats. and more tourists, with more roads, more flights coming in, all of the infrastructure that comes with hotels and everything connected with the leisure and tourism business, that's all good, is it, for these protected areas? again, it's a matter of management. if you look at botswana, where people tend to fly, rather than drive, and you do high end, low throughput tourism,

when you are giving people quality jobs, then tourism is a positive thing for natural resource governments. if you don't control it, if you let it get out of hand, as anything, whether it's agricultural, forestry, whatever... well, that's interesting. what you keep coming back to is the need for responsible governance, for clever and responsible government. why should we believe, even though you have nowjoined the government, that gabon is capable of that sort of governance, given that, right now, the president, your boss, is, according to many in your own country, incapable of fulfilling his job. we believe he had a stroke late last year. he's rarely seen in public. you're one of the last people seem pictured with him in public. so let's get your view. it is president ali bongo fit to govern your country? he is. he's weakened by his stroke.

he is walking like an old man, if you saw the images of him at the independence day. mentally he's...| would say, it's actually interesting. the french side of his brain is 100%. he's lost a little bit of his english. so he's totally fluent and with it in french, but his english has suffered slightly. so he's... he's definitely there and he's definitely in charge. so no question for you, he's fit to govern? he's fit to govern, yes. even in the deeper sense of a man who has been accused by, again, many people in his own country and many outside of being part of a kleptocratic regime, going back to his father, who governed for more than a0 years, we know from the french investigation that the family have vast assets stored away abroad, much of it in paris and in france, including a whole fleet of luxury

vehicles, the us senate reported on the movement of $100 million in what they regarded as suspect transactions, you're happy to sit in that government? i'm proud, actually, to be a government minister in gabon. i think what we're trying to do in gabon is to create a new vision for africa... but do you — do you sit and think about this sort of details i have just mentioned in the nature of the... of course i do. but you're presenting it in a very...biased way. you are citing that small proportion of 100% negative opposition politicians who always portray these things... well, no, i'm actually citing french authorities and the us authorities, and the world bank, which points out that despite its being a major oil producer, at least a third of the gabonese people live in poverty today. there is massive inequality

in that country. there is. and ijust wonder when you sit in the government whether you think that you can deliver what you want to deliver given the climate in which you have to operate. i've been working in gabon for over 30 years. i've been gabonese for about 15 years. i've been through some quite tough negotiations over time and i've dealt with some very difficult situations. and i've come through that. in a system where we genuinely are trying to get it right, in a system where we really do have these national parks which are well—managed, where we have more and more forestry concessions, which are well—managed and certified, where the economy

is more and more balanced, in a system where i work for a, you portray him in a very negative way, but i work for a very remarkable president who is one of the most intelligent human beings i have ever met and has always supported me to do myjob. let me just ask you one last simple but perhaps very difficult question. if you want to do things which president ali bongo doesn't want you to do, there's only going to be one winner it won't be you. it's the nature of politics in that country. how far can you go push your commitment, do you think, before you run into trouble yourself? we'll see. i'm... i like to think that i'm somebody who has integrity.

that's why i have been put into... you called yourself incorruptible once. i suspect that may have been tested in gabon. i am not sure i would say that. but, ah, i have to be. i'm not sure i would say it myself, just because you never know in life where life is going to take you. but if we have a difference of opinion we'll talk about it. and if it is irreparable, and i feel that i can't continue in the government, then obviously i would leave the government. but knowing the man i work for, i don't see that happening. i didn't take the decision lightly, two months ago, to leave the national parks and become a minister, to become a white politician in a black african country. i believe i can do a lot of good for the country, for its parks and wildlife, but more importantly, in a way, i'm the minister

of forests, of the environment, as you said, of the oceans, and of climate change. and the difficult part of myjob, really, is the climate change and the oceans, ocean pollution and so on. because there little gabon has to try and move the entire international community towards taking action. dealing with corruption in the forestry sector of gabon with full support from the president shouldn't take more than 3—6 months. we have to when there. but, lee white, it's been a pleasure having you on hardtalk. thank you very much indeed. you're welcome. thank you.

hello, once again. it's time we got you right up—to—date with how we see the rest of the week developing right across the british isles, and the rest of the week is certainly going to be marked by quite a considerable change for some parts, in that it will be cooler, wetter and windier and, for that change, we have to thank a frontal system which has been lurking away towards the north—western quarter of the british isles in recent days. itjust hasn't managed to get across the british isles simply because of the presence of the high pressure that has brought the heat from the continent, particularly to eastern areas. but wednesday sees this weather front producing some really quite heavy bursts of rain across the southwest, through wales, and then to the midlands, on towards the north—east of england, during the latter part of the afternoon. and there the temperature profile — no more the 33, it's closer to 23 or 2a as a high, and cooler than that across northern and western parts, where at least there will be a bright end

to the day. but come thursday, we'll be looking again towards the atlantic to see progress of more atlantic weather fronts into northern and western parts of the british isles. so it's wet and windy fare for the western side of scotland, through to northern ireland, too. generally speaking, quite a bit of cloud across england and wales, but a lot of dry weather. and again, that temperatures just about pushing to 23 or 2a at best, on notable south—westerly breeze. from thursday on into friday, we're just going to follow the line of the front back into the atlantic. a little ripple in that weather front thickens the cloud, and eventually another pulse of pretty wet weather gets into the western part of scotland, initially, then right across scotland, through northern ireland, into the northern parts of england and maybe just flirting with the north—western quarter of wales. again, thanks to the influence of a bit of a high—pressure, the south should be that wee bit drier. friday on towards the weekend, we've still got that same weather frontjust weaving its way across the british isles but, once that front has made its way down and across us, notice how those colours really begin to drain away, and here we are into the yellow

hues, with a touch of blue there, creeping into northern and western parts of the british isles. a taste of autumn, dare i say it, just in time for the meteorological start of autumn on sunday. so saturday sees the progression of that weather front ever further towards the south — slow progress there. so south—eastern parts may well stay dry for a good part of the day. but once the weather front completes its journey, then we're into a north north—westerly flow, hence that chillier feel right across the piste, and it will be a day marked by sunny spells and showers and, as i say, meteorological autumn arrives with a bang.

this is the briefing — i'm ben bland. our top story: the clock‘s ticking for italy's political parties. the president tells them — form a new government or face a snap election. women who say they were sexually

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