jacques chirac, who was president of france at the time, came and tried to convince omar bongo that itecision. 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

what omar bongo did was try to shift it in africa.l been developed on cheap, raw materials from africa. and if going to develop african countries, if we are 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 ami into africa and so the reason that i am i guess a government minister as well as a conservationist today is to find that balance, you can't do conservation in isolation, you are pa rt conservation in isolation, you are part of a system. to come back to my point about how prepared you are to ta ke 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 he use it as environment minister, your predecessor was sacked because of a scandal involving the illegal cutting down and trading of pre

come back to politics because, of course, the bongo family still rules gabon through the son of omar bongout 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 0mar 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 0mar 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 0mar bongo tha