Our Founder

St Barbe – a man ahead of his time

ITF was founded by Dr Richard St Barbe Baker, or “St Barbe” as he was generally known – a visionary and a tree planter. His environmental credentials, linked to his spiritual activism, made him a vital force for tree planting and conservation. As a leader on environmental issues he was generations ahead of his time and as a campaigner, he achieved much, not just to save trees, but to instil in others the love for trees that he carried wherever he went.

St Barbe was born on 9 October 1889 at West End, near Southampton in Hampshire. Like many young men of his generation he went to Canada where he studied at Saskatchewan University. Whilst there, he became concerned about the wasteful use of timber resources, and about prairie farming practices which created dust-bowl conditions. He returned to Britain to study Divinity at Cambridge but his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. He immediately enlisted as a Trooper in King Edwards Horse, later he was commissioned and transferred to the Royal Horse and Field Artillery. He saw action in France where he was seriously wounded twice before being invalided out of the Army in April 1918. He returned to Cambridge but this time took a Diploma in Forestry.

In 1920 he joined the Colonial Office and was sent as a Forestry Officer to Kenya where, with the assistance of Chief Josiah Njonjo, he formed the first “Men of the Trees” group. When St Barbe’s duties brought him back to Britain in 1924 he founded the UK organisation which is now known as the International Tree Foundation. During his years in Africa he became convinced that the destruction of trees was causing the enlargement of the Sahara desert. ITF still works to plant trees and improve livelihoods in the Sahara. St Barbe travelled the world to persuade governments of the absolute necessity to maintain tree cover. In the 1930s he was instrumental in the campaign which resulted in the establishment of the first protected reserves of redwoods in the Western USA. His first book was published in 1931 under the title “Men of the Trees”. He went on to write over thirty more.

His autobiography entitled “My life, my trees” was published in 1970. Her Majesty the Queen presented him with the OBE in 1978. Even in his ninety-third year he was still travelling the world. St Barbe died on 9th June 1982 whilst visiting his old university at Saskatoon, Canada.