Professor Lee White, born in Manchester (Great Britain) and originally from Lopé (Ogooué Ivindo, Gabon), is the Gabonese Minister of Water and Forests, the Sea and Environment, in charge of Climate Planning and Land-use Plan since June 2019. He is also an honorary professor at the University of Stirling and was awarded a CBE in 2011 for services to conservation in Central Africa. His career in the West and Central African forest belt spans 35 years. Prior to becoming Minister, he served as Director of the Gabonese National Parks Agency for ten years, where the agency’s development as a para-military force working alongside the army and the police to ensure sound governance of natural resources and to stop all forms of ivory trafficking, illegal fisheries, illegal gold mining and forestry as well as other forms of trafficking.
Professor White holds a Ph. D. on forestry’s impact on wildlife and climate change (Zoology) from the University of Edinburgh. As a scientist he has published over 100 scientific articles and book chapters and authored and edited 15 books on the ecology and conservation of the African rain forest. He has lived in Gabon for more than 30 years and became a Gabonese citizen in 2008.