i've been doing that for years in gabon.ighting 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'

but i couldn't do that. lot of people won't know gabon. it isa lot of people won't know gabon.atively small country in terms of population. i know it is fairly sizeable but fewer than 2 million people on the atlantic coast of africa. why gabon for you? you had no connection there. as a i ologist i was looking for the place where i would see the gorillas and the elephants and the chimpanzees and the wildlife ——as a zoologist. something like it before humans had high—powered rifles and started eliminating everything. it really was drift in a way, i decided to do a phd, a route 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 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 t

gabon's marine protection program is one of the most comprehensive in west africa where overfishing is a major problem its aims to stop illegal fishing and also support local communities develop more sustainable fishing practices of course the program is only as good as its enforcement and that can be difficult as our reporter discover it. just off the shore of the league of the. come on his eco guards patrol the coastline for illegal fishing. since 27000 nearly a quarter of waters have been named marine protection areas making the marine parks the biggest protections oh not for cars west coast. idea to create a marine park came from the need to preserve the fish stocks and to reduce the pressure of fishing particularly industrial fishing. that's why the park was created and from the shore it goes out around 4 kilometers . commercial fishing is strictly prohibited here but he and his men still come across illegal fishing activities every day these fisherman have been caught before they've already been given a warning. or not see them here in the park again. so we let them off a little