UNITED KINGDOM AUTHOR · FORESTS AND FORESTRY · DESCRIPTION AND TRAVEL
Richard St. Barbe Baker
Also known as: Richard St Barbe Baker, Richard St Barbe 1889-1982 Baker
Richard St. Barbe Baker was an English biologist and botanist, environmental activist and author. He worked in Kenya, Nigeria, the Gold Coast, the Levante, and the American West Coast.
Most acclaimed
Dance of the Trees
Richard St. Bark Raker’s work as a forester, tree-planter, and founder of the Society of The Men of the Trees is known in every country in the world. The first The Men of the Trees were the Kikuyu of Kenya where the author spent seven years as a Conservator of Forests. As a boy St. Bathe Baker learned forestry in Hampshire. As a youth he served an apprenticeship on the North West Frontier where he hunted with Cree Indians who taught him to ‘live on the forests’. He has planted trees in Australia, New Zealand and Palestine: his fight for the preservation of the majestic Redwoods of the United States of America made history. In 1953, he led an expedition into the Sahara that discovered traces of lost forests and lakes beneath the sands. ‘Dance of the Trees’ is the story of a ceaseless struggle to defend nature from the encroaching desert. If forests are not conserved, the author declares, the world will become a desert. Already he is preparing a project called The Sahara Reclamation Scheme which might make fertile a desert greater in area than Australia. In the Great War Richard St. Bathe Baker served as a soldier, and in the last war as a mounted policeman. He lives strenuously, dangerously and happily; his story; is enriched by his memories of famous people and great.
Famous trees of Bible lands
This is a book that will surely become beside reading for many generations to come. After the stress and strain of the work-a-day world what better refreshment for mind and spirit than tot have communion with the trees and learn something more of their mystery from a master of his craft? The Author’s lifelong dedication to the cause of the tree has been such as to absorb his whole being and it is, therefore, not surprising that in this, perhaps his greatest work, he should have written of his beloved trees in their Biblical and Classical settings as illustrative and expressive of the deepest mysteries and the highest qualities of the One Universal Life. The trees are a vital link between man and his Creator. The more he reacts rightly to the threes the more he grows in spiritual stature as well as material benefit. But if his reactions are those of ignorance and destruction—as has so often been the case throughout history—he brings himself to the very point of self-destruction. In the present parlous state of the world a new understanding of trees is vital to mankind, and a new attitude towards their culture essential to the preservation of life, on this planet. Not only are the various trees with which the earth is blest messengers of their Creator at the highest mystical level, but, like Himself they provide abundantly for all practical needs as well. Trees are a never-ending Joy and the Authors, whose Joy in them is abounding, pour out from the rich treasury of his knowledge and experience. The trees speak to us of Infinite Diversity and yet of Unity; of Strength; of Beauty; of adaptability from the most fertile to the most barren conditions of the earth. They provide, properly husbanded, materials for our shelter and our garmenting, and by their water-retaining power make all agriculture possible. Lastly, they are responsible for the very air we breathe without which we should have no existence at all.