St. Barbe’s layers of accomplishment in forestry overshadow the energy he brought to other philanthropic and cultural endeavors. For example, in the aftermath of WWI he noted the large number of underclassmen at Cambridge suffering from war-inflicted disabilities. To aid them, he established on campus a therapeutic and productive Amateur Beekeeper’s Club, himself procuring the necessary patron, equipment and supplies and providing the training.

While on safari in Nigeria he encountered groups of outcast lepers in the jungle. He appealed to the Colonial medical establishment, which refused to acknowledge the lepers’ existence. At his own expense St. Barbe procured medicine, found a trained dispenser, and instituted a treatment center. Then he obtained seed from India and planted thousands of Hydnocarpus Wightaena trees to establish a future supply in Africa of (what was at that time) the designated medicine for combating leprosy. This entire incident did not even garner mention in his autobiography.

Youngsters Seeking Initiation in Kenya, 1920's

His writings and photographs depict ways of life and thought – some now lost – among the indigenous people of Africa that are a substantial contribution to anthropology. His forthright personal accounts of their telepathic abilities will fascinate generations to come.

Archeological dig at Tel Farah, 1929

While in Palestine in 1929, he spent three weeks filming, on four-hundred foot reels, Sir Flinders Petrie’s archeological digs of ancient Roman, Greek, and Hebrew ruins at Tel Farah, one of the far-flung cities of Judah. He filed news stories from the site with The Times of London. On the outskirts of Jerusalem, he oversaw the revival – which he had helped instigate – of the Feast of the Trees, with four thousand schoolchildren taking part in tree planting before sixteen thousand onlookers.

St. Barbe offered a creative response wherever he could. After WWI he successfully helped lobby for the creation of a Ministry of Health in England. At another time, through inspirational talks, he lifted fifty youngsters from lives of poverty in some of the poorest mining communities of England to new starts on farms in Canada. To assist Australian servicemen returning home after WWII, he made a film to convince the English public to eat Australian oranges. He headed a campaign to save the elm trees of Hyde Park in London. He wrote in support of land reform to benefit the poor in India, organized disaster relief after earthquakes struck Iran. He spurned ideological contention by praising the tree-planting initiatives of Russia and China, and Islamic countries Pakistan, Egypt and Kuwait.

The pace and range of his activities occasionally caught up with him. In conjunction with a serious illness in late 1974, St. Barbe’s surgeon gave him one more year to live. However, the medical prognosis did not take into account St. Barbe’s adamantine will, steeled by his sense of purpose.

He pulled through, only to resume his role as advocate and protector of the planet’s trees for eight more years and pursue a grueling globetrotting itinerary that boggles the mind.

Speaking of St. Barbe’s last years, when he was in his 80s and 90s, his friend, writer Paul Hanley of Saskatchewan, commented,

…He never gave up, things like starting Children of the Green Earth and going to China primarily to work with children. It is interesting that when most people lapse into inactivity, he really got going. And he did it with nothing. He basically had no money when he was here...his friends sometimes bought him a plane ticket to get rid of him because it was so much work having him around, receiving visitors, planting trees, meeting dignitaries, media and so on.

 

His Life
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