Gabon's Minister of Forests and Environment - Lee White
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 28 August 2019
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Our planet is haemorrhaging natural resources at an alarming rate. Biodiversity is under threat as forests are felled, wild animals illegally hunted. Stephen Sackur speaks to Lee White, newly appointed Environment Minister in the West African state of Gabon. He is on the front line of the effort to conserve and protect what remains, in a country famed for its tropical forests, its elephants and gorillas, but also notorious for systemic corruption and inequality. Can Gabon find a sustainable balance between the needs of man and nature?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker. |
| 0:06.6 | Thanks for downloading this edition of the program. I do hope you enjoy it. Welcome to Hard Talk on |
| 0:12.7 | the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today is a British zoologist whose doctoral |
| 0:18.8 | studies took him to Gabon, West Africa, three decades ago. |
| 0:23.7 | His PhD has long since been completed, but his commitment to protecting and conserving the vast |
| 0:30.0 | natural resources of Gabon lives on. Lee White decided to make the country his home. |
| 0:37.1 | His academic and environmental work saw him |
| 0:39.7 | appointed director of Gabon's National Parks Agency a decade ago. And this summer, he was appointed |
| 0:46.1 | to the cabinet as minister responsible for the environment, including responsibility for |
| 0:51.5 | forest, sea and climate. The appointment has brought with it enormous challenges. |
| 0:57.0 | Some in Gabon are suspicious of a white outsider with close ties to the controversial and reportedly very sick, President Ali Bongo. |
| 1:06.0 | Lee White says he's committed to finding a sustainable balance between the needs of man and nature. |
| 1:12.4 | But in a country dogged by corruption, inequality and poor governance, is that possible? |
| 1:19.1 | Well, he joins me now. |
| 1:20.9 | Lee White, welcome to Hard Talk. |
| 1:23.1 | Hello. |
| 1:23.2 | You first went to Gabon as a research zoologist, a young student. |
| 1:29.4 | You became a conservationist and environmental campaigner, and yet here we sit with you as a government minister, minister for the environment in Gabon. |
| 1:39.6 | How did you get seduced, if I may use that word, into the murky world of politics? |
| 1:46.5 | Conservation is about people, not about wildlife, really. If people aren't involved, |
| 1:53.6 | leave the gorillas and elephants to look after themselves and they'll be just fine. Leave |
| 1:57.5 | the forests to grow and they'll be fine as well. In a planet where people are churning |
... |
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