On 22 June 2021, Gabon became the first African country to be paid for by international funds to help it continue its efforts to protect the forests on its territory.
The Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI), an organization launched in 2015 by the UN, awarded Gabon $ 17 million. “Today the economy” portrays Lee White. This 50-year-old, of British descent, has lived in Gabon for 32 years and has stopped taking his nationality. He has therefore been Gabon’s Minister for Water and Forests, the Sea and the Environment since 10 June 2019.
Since his appointment as Minister, Lee White has changed his essential shunting clothes to travel in the woods in favor of a suit. But he dresses contractually privately. His appointment had come as a surprise to his adopted country. In addition to being white, a strong defender of the environment, Lee White has always maintained strained relationships with the officials in the ministry he leads today. Tells him that he owes his appointment to his expertise.
“Everyone knows I’m not a classic Gabonese politician. I was appointed for my technicality, in a ministry where we had problems. There have been 11 ministers in ten years! I have already exceeded the average duration of 11 months, it has been two years now ”that he is at the head of a ministry that is difficult to manage.
A father who is in love with nature
Born in Manchester, this Briton who grew up in Uganda with a father who is in love with nature. It was therefore very early that he thought about flora and fauna in national parks in East Africa. He discovered Gabon in 1989 where he arrived at research related to his studies in zoology. He was then 23 years old. He will almost never leave the country.
He has represented the Wildlife Conservation Society in Gabon since 1992. This non-governmental organization will help this country – which today has 90% forest cover – establish national parks in 2002. A time when Lee White advised President Omar Bongo on climate issues and ecotourism.
A scientist who whispers in the ears of presidents
He is also the one who would have partly transformed Presidents Bongo – father and son – into the protection of the environment. In 2009, one year after acquiring Gabonese nationality, he was appointed head of the National Parks Agency, which manages thirteen reserves. Ten years later, he was therefore appointed Minister of Water and Forestry, the Sea and the Environment. With this title, do you listen much more to environmental issues?
I was still a member of the National Committee of the PDG (the ruling party), but I was not elected. I was the director of national parks. I did some politics in La Lopé, where I lived for 30 years, more to develop La Lopé than to play politics. Obviously, ten years as patron of national parks in Gabon is already a rather political role: we work a lot with the government and with the people, so I had some political experience stemming from that. But I am also heard internationally, because I have more than a hundred scientific publications. So, maybe yes, as a minister, the voice is a little higher. But my voice is also much more criticized. ”
This criticism comes in particular from another environmental defender: the head of the NGO Brainforest. Marc Ona believes, for example, that Lee White’s action when he headed the National Agency for National Parks failed to dampen poaching.
Affordable but inadequate
While acknowledging Lee White’s contribution to Gabon’s forest conservation, Marc Ona says that if he has had mixed results in the national parks representing almost 11% of the territory, it will be difficult for him to manage the whole country.
Other criticisms come from unions, such as Didier Bibang Atome. In June 2020, the President of the National Union of Water and Forestry Staff (Synapef) condemned certain appointments of Lee White.
“The white man in government has completely disappointed us. Because we gave a hope when he came, but we discovered that he got worse than a Gabonese. ”
This is another story for loggers, who expect Lee White to step up action against illegal timber trade. The operations director of the French group Rougier in Gabon, Jean-Benoît Sicard, says he does not know Lee White personally, but he welcomes her availability and mastery of the sector.
“We work with him quite often. Professionally, we consider him to be a top technician, who is completely familiar with the requirements for forest certification and operation – which are not quite the same. He is someone who is very approachable and who above all has a vision of the development of the wood industry, both for the exploitation of natural forests and for the exploitation of plantations, and which normally allows him to develop calmly. ”
Lee White participated in the creation of some forty protected areas, especially in Gabon, but also in Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
His curiosity as a scientist remains intact. When he develops Loango National Park in southwestern Gabon, where elephants sometimes roam the Atlantic, near a place also visited by whales, he would like to know about the pachyderms and the largest animal sailor talking to each other!
