Richard St. Barbe Baker

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Richard St. Barbe Baker (1889-1982) was an English forester, environmental activist, and author who contributed greatly to worldwide reforestation efforts. As a leader, he founded an organization, still active today, whose many chapters carry out reforestation internationally. As an expression of his spiritual bent and his broad humanitarianism, he became a Bahá'í in London around 1924.

1 Life and work
2 Books
3 References

[edit] Life and work

[edit] Early years

He was born in Beacon Hill, Hampshire, England, to John Richard St. Barbe Baker and Charlotte Purrott. He was descended from lines of farmers, parsons, and evangelists – with the occasional adventurer amongst his forebears, as well. As a very young child he was attracted to gardening and, since the family’s Beacon Hill home was surrounded by a wood, he began to explore the forest at a fairly early age. He became very adept at manual work and harbored a lifelong belief in its value.

St. Barbe Baker’s father wanted him to enter the ministry. At 13, he was sent to Dean Close School (a boarding school), in Cheltenham, where he became interested in the sciences of botany and forestry. A clergyman recently returned from Canada appealed to his religious heritage and suggested that the young man prepare himself for missionary work in the western region of that country. He did so in 1910, sailing the Atlantic and heading far inland, where he lived in rough-hewn conditions, devoted to studies that would earn him a diploma from of Emmanuelle College, University of Saskatchewan. Doing evangelical work, traveling widely on horseback, he became convinced that the agricultural practices (including the razing of the natural scrub trees) by European settlers were leading to deplorable soil degradation and potential aridity on Canada’s prairies. Working for a short while as a logger, and managing to save some money, he returned to England to study at Ridley Hall, Cambridge.

When World War I intervened he served in France with Royal Horse and Field Artillery units, being wounded on three occasions. After discharge, he worked in the British Government’s social services for a period.

[edit] Work in Africa

He soon resumed studies at Cambridge in forestry. Graduating from the program, he applied for work in British-held Kenya. In North Africa he saw the effects of centuries of land mismanagement, first from wheat farming in the later days of the Roman Empire and after that from the grazing of goats first introduced by Arabs. Immediately concerned with these deforestation problems, in 1922 he set up a tree nursery and founded an organization with Kenya’s Kikuyu people to carry out managed reforestation in the region, utilizing native species. In the regional dialect, the local society was called “Watu wa Miti,” it was a foundation stone for what became an international organization, the Men of the Trees (a translation of the original name).

After leaving Kenya in 1924, he went back to England. After giving a talk at the First Congress of Living Religions within the Commonwealth he was approached by Claudia Stewart Coles who introduced him to the Bahá'í Faith; St. Barbe Baker studied the religion and embraced it shortly after (in 1924).

He then returned to Africa, where he was appointed Assistant Conservator of Forests for the southern provinces of Nigeria from 1925 to 1929, where he went on to do work similar to what he had done in Kenya. He also did forestry planning work in the Gold Coast. During this time, he devoted himself in part to a study of the ecology of extremely complex tropical forests. However, an incident occurred in which he defended an African man against abuse by a British official and, thereby running afoul of the Colonial Office, he was discharged from his duties.

[edit] Work in Palestine

He attended the First World Forestry Congress in Rome and then went on to work in Palestine and set up a chapter of the Men of the Trees there. There, meeting and winning the support of Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith who who became the first life member of the Men of the Trees in Palestine, he was able to get the backing of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian leaders for a program to reforest Palestine.

[edit] Work in America

Travelling to America, where he crossed the country and toured the Redwood groves on the West Coast, St. Barbe Baker became an author and sought-after lecturer, and received laudatory national attention from popular radio host Lowell Thomas. Returning to England via Australia, his thoughts returned to California and he started the Save the Redwoods campaign. Sir Francis Younghusband, first president of the British chapter of the Men of the Trees, championed the cause in the UK. St. Barbe Baker’s connections with the United States remained strong, and in the late 1930s he worked with President Franklin D. Roosevelt to establish the American Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), said eventually to involve some six-million youths.

[edit] Establishment of the Men of the Trees

In good part because of St. Barbe Baker’s continued travels, chapters of his organization, the Men of the Trees, were founded internationally. After World War II, a lecture tour into Austria, Germany and other countries launched his concept of an international Green Front to promote the idea of reforestation worldwide. Probably the largest single challenge that he addressed himself to was the concept of gradually reclaiming the Sahara Desert through the strategic planting of trees. This idea took shape after a 25,000-mile expedition around the Desert (through 24 countries) that he made with a team in 1964.

St. Barbe Baker’s organization, the Men of the Trees, eventually grew to be known as the International Tree Foundation. Ultimately, there were chapters in over 100 countries. By some estimates, organizations he founded or assisted have been responsible for planting at least 26 trillion trees, internationally.

[edit] Death

St. Barbe Baker died on June 9, 1982 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Just days before his death he planted his last tree on the grounds of the University of Saskatchewan, and he was working on his thirty-first book.

[edit] Bahá'í Faith

David Hofman, a Canadian Bahá'í who served on the Universal House of Justice said of St. Barbe Baker's acceptance of the Bahá'í Faith: "He always said that this was the beginning of his true life, and he realized that he derived so much benefit from these [Bahá'í] prayers that it was only fair that he should serve the Bahá'í Faith to the best of his ability." Mr. Hofman has also said that, "... he spread knowledge of the Faith wherever he went and was greatly admired by Shoghi Effendi for his dedication to the cause of humanity."