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Richard St. Barbe Baker, 1889-1982

by Barrie Oldfield, Christopher Fyfe

The man was an inspiration; his extraordinary energy and stirring speeches touched thousands in his lifetime. Widely considered the world's greatest ambassador for forestry, he founded the Men of The Trees. In Western Australia, a sunburnt land bearing scars of over-enthusiastic land-clearing by pioneer farmers, his vision and spirit came as water to the desert. His disciples put this precious book together, from records of his brief visits to Perth. It was published on the centenary of his birth, and the occasion was celebrated by ceremonial tree-planting at St Bathe Grove, Perth, by many conservation groups. Editors Christopher Fyfe and Bathe Oldfield have done well to gather together his pearls of wisdom. The book is a delight, and will provide spiritual renewal for weary foresters, tree-lovers, and conservationists, the world over. His stories, prayers, achievements, and creed, are included. The story of St Barbe's close shave with death on the occasion of a leg injury in Ceylon is given. As he told it to my children, it was more alarming than the account in this book. He said that he developed lockjaw from a com-pound leg-fracture sustained in rough seas off India, while escorting the first shipload of returned service-men's oranges from Mildura plantations back to Liverpool. To survive tetanus in pre-antibiotic days was indeed a medical miracle. Having had the great man to stay with my family, on his last Australian tour at the age of 91, the book brings back vivid memories. No project was too large: 'Save the Redwoods', 'trees for the Sahara', 'walls of trees' in China. Nothing was too much trouble: 'show a child where to plant', 'write a hundred letters', 'tell a story for the hundredth time' — such pearls were many, and well worth recording. Men of his stature are rare; his work and wisdom should be remembered by all who are concerned with conservation of what wild Nature is left in our world, and particularly of forests.