Richard St. Barbe Baker (9 October 1889 – 9 June 1982) was an English biologist and botanist, environmental activist and author, who contributed greatly to worldwide reforestation efforts.

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.

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.

[6] Doing evangelical work, Baker travelled widely on horseback from his homestead [which he later abandoned] around the area attending to his ministry as well as to the University for classes.

Working for a short while as a logger in the Prince Albert Lumber Camps he became convinced that the wanton waste of timber and 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.

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 organisation with Kenya's Kikuyu people to carry out managed reforestation in the region, utilising native species.

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.

[8] [page needed] 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 he met and won the support of Shoghi Effendi, then head of the Baháʼí Faith, who became the first life member of the Men of the Trees in Palestine.

Traveling 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.

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.

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.

[26][27] Richard St. Barbe Baker's papers, manuscripts, personal correspondence, forestry and conservation activities, photographs and fonds are preserved at the University of Saskatchewan Archives and Special Collections room.

The memorial includes a bronze bas-relief image of St. Barbe Baker sculpted by Jill Tweed, set in granite atop a Portland stone column.