this is bbc news, the headlines: there is uproar in the uk over the government's decision to suspend parliament for nearly five weeks in the run—up to brexit. opponents of prime minister boris johnson say it's a constitutional crisis and will help him force through a no—deal brexit. the government says it's an entirely legal procedure that will still leave time for more debate in parliament. a suspected arson attack on a nightclub in mexico has killed at least 25 people and left 11 badly hurt. fire bombs were thrown at the club in the city of coatzacoalcos. federal authorities are investigating possible collusion between local officials and organised crime. tropical storm dorian has brought heavy rains and strong winds to the us virgin islands. the storm's been updgraded to a categoryi hurricane. florida has declared a state of emergency and forecasters warn it could be a major hurricane by the time it makes landfall on sunday or monday.

now on bbc news. it's hardtalk with stephen sackur. welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. our planet is haemorrhaging natural resources at an alarming rate. biodiversity is under threat as forests are felled, wild animals illegally hunted. my guest today is on the frontline of the effort to conserve and protect what remains. lee white is the newly—appointed environment minister in the west african state of gabon. a country famed for its tropical forests, its elephants and gorillas. but also notorious for systemic corruption and inequality. so can gabon find a sustainable balance between the needs of man and nature?

theme music plays. lee white, welcome to hardtalk. hello. 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? conservation is about people, not about wildlife, really. if people aren't involved, leave the gorillas and elephants to look after themselves and they'll be just fine.

leave the forests to grow and they'll be fine as well. 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 of time out in the field, in nature, often pristine nature, i'm guessing that perhaps you didn't actually like dealing with people that much. yes, i started as a anti—social biologist. in my first five years in gabon i barely came out of the forest so i barely met anybody. over the years i went from being a zoologist to botanist to archaeologist, that started bringing me a bit 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. 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 in terms of population. i know it's very sizeable, but it's fewer than 2 million people on the atlantic coast of africa. why gabon for you? you'd had no connection there. as a biologist, i was looking for the place where i would see the gorillas and the elephants and the chimpanzees and wildlife, something like it would've been like before humans had high—powered rifles and started eliminating everything. and so it really was random drift in a way, i decided to do a phd,

i wrote to all of the eminent scientists around the world who were studying how forestry impacts wildlife which is the subject i decided to study, and i got one letter back and it was from a british woman, called caroline chuton, who had been in gabon for about ten years. the railway had opened up the rainforests of central gabon to forestry and caroline wrote back to me and said, "come along, we really need to understand what the impact of this increased pressure on the forest is going to have." by 2009, a decade ago, you had been appointed to be 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. so you've got a big territory... it was a big job, yeah. you've already talked about the pressures,

the balance between man and nature. how, in thatjob, did you preserve the forest, given that one of the key industries in gabon is derived from logging and timber trade? you have to go back a little bit in the story. 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, i don't know if you'd quarrel with us, but an african dictator. i would quarrel with that. i would call him an african chief, myself. dictator is a very hard and a very negative word. he was the president in a one—party system for 20 years and then he was the president in a multi—party system with elections and he won the elections and when he died, i was actually in a climate change negotiation in bonn when he died and i headed back to gabon.

when i got back to gabon, the queue to pay respects in front of his coffin went three times 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. we'll revisit your relationship with the ruling family later, because it is important because it's politics and you are now a senior and important minister in the gabonese government, so we'll come back to politics because, of course, the bongo family still rules gabon through the son 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. when omar bongo created the parks system, there was forestry in all of the protected areas of gabon. and gabon was going the way of ivory coast. ivory coast today has 3% of its forests left. 80% of its parks have 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. jacques chirac, who was president of france at the time, came and tried to convince omar bongo that it was a bad decision. the french had big logging interests in gabon. 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 president sarkozy was in gabon trying to convince him he had made the wrong mistake and that is was a silly thing to do. what omar bongo did was try to shift the paradigm of development in africa. britain, china, the us, have all been developed on cheap, raw materials from africa. and if we're going to develop

african countries, if we're going to find the balance between the preservation and the sustainable use of these natural resources, at least a good proportion of the wealth that comes from the exploitation of those natural resources has to come back into africa. 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. but to come back to my point about how prepared you are to take on vested interests which are undermining the efforts you and others have made in the country to preserve 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 in containers inside gabon. the vice president ended up losing hisjob over this. your predecessor, the environment minister. so i'm suggesting to you that your job is going to involve you taking on some very powerful vested interests. i've been doing that for years in gabon. i've been fighting the illegal ivory trade, where you're dealing with even terrorists groups. i've been fighting illegalforestry. we've only had two cases of illegal forestry inside the national parks of gabon in the last decade. i've been fighting illegal gold.

between those three illegal industries, i was dealing with maybe $300—400 million of turnover and some very unpleasant organisations and people. and we managed to do it. one of the reasons we managed to do that is because i had very strong support from the president himself. 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—14.

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, last 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. we have to end there. but, lee white, it's been a pleasure having you on hardtalk. thank you very much indeed. you're welcome. thank you. hi there. temperatures still made the mid—20s celsius across the south—east of the country on wednesday, but as these weather fronts move through, they've introduced much fresher conditions off the atlantic. it's low pressure now in charge of the weather as we head on into the end of the week. in fact, there'll be a fair amount of rain in the forecast for some northern and western areas. thursday is looking fairly unsettled

again across scotland and northern ireland thanks to this area of low pressure. it's going to be pretty windy here — gusts 30—a0mph in exposure. few showers or barely any showers the further south and east you go, and again, a fairly warm afternoon with temperatures reaching the mid—20s celsius. closer to the mid—to—high teens further north. as we move through thursday night it's going to remain windy across north—western areas. further cloud and outbreaks of rain piling into scotland and northern ireland. a few showers into the north—west of england. tending to stay dry across the south—east. but it'll be a cooler night for all of us, and temperatures ranging between 11—14 degrees. on into friday, low pressure to the north of the uk. a conveyor belt of cloud and rain streaming in off the atlantic will bring quite a lot of rainfall in fact to parts of the north and the west of the uk, particularly across west and south—west scotland, into northern ireland. rainfall totals really mounting up here. but further south and east, again, closer to the high pressure over the near continent then, it should tend to stay dry with sunny spells, and again, feeling quite warm —

2a, 25 degrees. the mid—to—high teens again further north. now, into the weekend, it remains fairly unsettled, with further wind and certainly some rain around. and then it will turn even cooler as we head on into part two of the weekend, as we see winds switch to a north—westerly direction. so, as we move out of friday and into saturday, this next feature will bring quite a lot of rainfall again to northern and western areas. by this point, we could be looking at a few issues across south—west scotland, for dumfries and galloway, maybe four inches of rain falling by the time saturday's out. but this rain band will pivot round, pushing to western england, parts of wales, sunshine and showers follow on behind. but it still stays dry and fairly warm across the far south—east — 20—211 degrees. something cooler pushing into the north—west. but as that front clears through during saturday night, then it opens the floodgates to a polar maritime north—westerly, and that'll be very noticeable right up and down the country. so a much fresher start to the day. plenty of sunshine and showers across northern and western areas.

a few heavy, maybe thundery ones mixed in. again it could be the south and east that stays dry in the sunshine, but temperatures will struggle — ranging from 12 to 17 or 18 degrees.

this is the briefing, i'm samantha simmonds. we are live from westminster. borisjohnson insists there will still be enough time to debate brexit after his decision to suspend parliament for five weeks after protests and condemnation from all sides, a legal challenge is under way and a petition against it has a million signatures and counting. the number of migrants attempting dangerous crossings across the channel has tripled in less than a year, according to figures obtained by the bbc. freight traffic going across, and the ferries from dover to