Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

Anyone that helps people who are accused of sorcery are also blamed for being sorceress.

Lives less ordinary from the BBC World Service, real people with extraordinary stories.

I started having a strength in me.

I have to stand up for other women.

Find out more at the end of this podcast.

Hello and thank you for downloading the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Laura Jones.

In 2002 the President of Gabon in Central Africa announced the creation of 13 national parks

in an effort to protect the globally important rainforest.

A scientist from thousands of miles away

helped President Omar Bongo understand

the natural treasures hidden inside the forests.

I've been speaking to Professor Lee White, who's now a government minister in his adopted home of Gabon. That's the sound of the forest elephant. Their home in Gabon in the Congo

Basin is part of the second biggest rainforest in the world after the Amazon.

It's a place which in 2002, the President Omar Bongo didn't know much about,

despite having ruled the country for 35 years.

He turned to his foreign minister at the time. He chastised him. He said

...