LIBREVILLE — French and African military units have begun a multi-day environmental protection exercise in Gabon aimed at strengthening regional capacity to tackle illegal gold mining, deforestation, and threats to protected ecosystems, organisers said.
The training, run through Gabon’s Academy for the Protection of the Environment and Natural Resources (APERN), brings together 11 teams from eight African countries—Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Chad and Gabon—alongside a French team, with instruction led by Gabonese and French trainers. Participants are combining field drills with classroom workshops focused on operational responses to environmental crime and cross-border pressures.
Gabon’s Minister of National Defence attended the event, highlighting the growing political and security focus on environmental crime in Central Africa, where illegal mining and logging networks are increasingly linked to armed groups, smuggling routes and instability, according to security analysts and international policing assessments.
Organisers framed the exercise as part of France’s evolving military approach in Africa, which has shifted toward support, training and capacity-building as Paris dismantles or reduces several long-standing permanent bases and renegotiates defence arrangements across the region.
APERN technical director Commander Clavier said the programme is designed as an “exchange of expertise,” drawing on French experience fighting illegal mining in French Guiana under Operation Harpie, and on Gabon’s own enforcement efforts in sensitive conservation zones, including operations around Minkébé. He said blending those lessons is meant to deliver “concrete, operational training” for partner forces facing similar threats.
France has increasingly highlighted environmental security as a stabilisation priority in parts of Africa, where resource crime can degrade ecosystems, fuel corruption and finance wider criminal networks.
