Forests Cover 90% of Gabon – and the Country Gets Tough on Loggers to Keep It That Way

Gabon’s new environment minister, Lee White, is working on plans to strengthen forest governance in the Central African nation – in pursuit of fighting illegal logging while curbing climate change.

“Maintaining forests is the most cost-effective way of dealing with climate change,” says White, a British-born conservationist.

Forests cover 90% of Gabon – a country with a population 2 million – and has one of the lowest deforestation rates in the world. But a national scandal earlier this year, in which around 350 containers of the valuable kevazingo wood went missing, led the president to replace the former minister of forests, environment, and sea in a mission to better regulate the logging industry. The nation will require logging companies to be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, the international certification system for ethical wood items, by 2022.