The global vision of Richard St. Barbe Baker

Perhaps the most visionary of the early environmentalists, Richard St. Barbe Baker travelled the globe from the late 1920s to the early 1980s, warning of the dangers of rainforest destruction, forest clear-cutting, and the greedy consumption of natural resources.

A widely respected forester, conservationist and author, his vision of the planet as a living organism anticipated the present-day Gaia theory, and his practice of involving people at the grassroots in protecting the environment foreshadowed current thinking in sustainable development.

In Kenya during the early 1920s, for example, Dr. Baker inspired thousands of Kikuyu tribesmen to help protect the local environment by planting trees. Their organization became known as the "Men of the Trees." His success was based, in part, on his understanding of how their own traditions and beliefs supported such a cause.

Among his legacies is the establishment of the World Forestry Charter Gathering, which was among the first international meetings to take a global view of the earth's ecosystem.

The first Gathering was held in 1945, and the meetings continued regularly through the 1950s and 1960s. As they grew in prestige and renown, the Gatherings stimulated several early instances of global cooperation, including an international proclamation of a Green Front Against the Deserts and support for the First Sahara University Expedition.

By the 1970s, it was felt that the Gatherings had been superseded by the establishment of other, more formalized international meetings and conferences on the environment, and the Gatherings were discontinued.

Nevertheless, as world events have shown, the world has not yet adequately risen to embrace Dr. Baker's call to protect and preserve our forests, which he called the "skin of the earth." In 1989, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Baker, the Bahá'í International Community revived the Gathering. And the 1994 Gathering likewise seems as relevant as ever.

Dr. Baker saw in trees and forestry a vital international resource. He believed that efforts to protect and re-plant them provided a tremendous means for social advancement and economic development.


Dr. Richard St. Barbe Baker, standing at right, at a reunion in the 1950s in Kenya with original members of the Men of the Trees. Dr. Baker founded the Men of the Trees in 1922. It was one of the first environmental non-governmental organizations to be supported from the grassroots and to base its activities on spiritual principles.

"World afforestation is necessary because it is the most constructive and peaceable enterprise in which the nations could co-operate," Dr. Baker wrote in 1949, speaking of the need for the Gatherings. "It would check, stop, and reverse the advance of the deserts upon the good lands of the globe, and thus relieve the shortage of foods."

Dr. Baker's views about the important role that spiritual beliefs must play in giving an underlying motivation to conservation efforts were also ground-breaking. As a member of the Bahá'í Faith, he drew extensively on the Faith's teachings about the oneness of humanity and, accordingly, brought a distinctive global-mindedness and unifying spirit to virtually every project he undertook.

The theme of this year's Gathering was the Forest Principles, which were adopted, together with the forest management plan of Agenda 21, by the governments of the world at the historic 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Many of the ideas that Dr. Baker tirelessly promoted during his lifetime, through his writings, lectures and annual World Forestry Charter Gatherings, can be found in these Principles.

The Forest Principles recognize the need to protect the world's forests so as "to meet the social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual human needs of present and future generations..."

They also speak of the importance of grassroots participation "in the development, implementation and planning of national forest policies."

And they recognize that "all types of forests embody complex and unique ecological processes which are the basis for their present and potential capacity to provide resources to satisfy human needs as well as environmental values...."

Yet many were rightly disappointed when the world community was unable to produce a more far-reaching Convention on Forestry -- and speakers at this year's Gathering have sought to address that. HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in particular, uttered a resounding call for the adoption of such a convention.

The aim of the 1994 World Forestry Charter Gathering was also to provide an underlying sense of moral and spiritual urgency as nations go about implementing the Forest Principles and the Forest Management Plan of Agenda 21 -- and move toward a Convention and beyond.

Some forty years ago, when Richard St. Barbe Baker began the World Forestry Charter Gatherings, he asked diplomats to St. James's Palace not only to report on the state of their nations' forests, but also to suggest how they might cooperate, as citizens of the world, to preserve, re-establish and manage this common heritage. At the time, this concept was novel.

Today, in our increasingly interdependent world, sustainable stewardship of the earth's forests is coming to be understood as inseparable from a range of other global issues -- including the establishment of social and economic justice within and between the nations of the world, equality of the sexes, democratic global governance and the rule of law.

If integrated into international policies and action plans for sustainable development, this concept of global responsibility and world citizenship identified so long ago by Bahá'u'lláh, and later applied to the issue of forests by Dr. Baker, offers a distinctive new global ethic.

As environmentalists ponder how best to motivate the changes in attitudes and activities that will be necessary to create a sustainable human civilization, the work of Richard St. Barbe Baker -- and especially his understanding of how religious belief can provide a vital motivation for environmental conservation -- is certain to be increasingly recognized.


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