Originating in Kenya in 1922, the motto of the Men of the Trees is "Twahamwe," meaning "Pull Together," or "All As One." In that spirit, numerous organizations, groups, conferences, and observances have credited Richard St. Barbe Baker as being their founder, co-founder, guiding inspiration, or a leading public advocate.

In addition to the worldwide branches of the Men of the Trees and the International Tree Foundation, these include: the World Forestry Congresses, the Soil Association, Trees for Palestine, the World Forestry Charter Gatherings, the Save the Redwoods League, Tree Sunday, Children of the Green Earth, Friends of Nature, the Green Front, the Sahara Reclamation Company, Friends of the Sahara, the Forestry Association of Great Britain, the Year of the Tree, Arbor Day activities in countless localities, Trees for Life, the Tree Society, the EcoWorld Foundation, and the International Tree Crops Institute.

St. Barbe with friends
in front of a forestry institute, Beijing, China

Richard never retired; instead he traveled and taught. While on a visit to Canada at the age of 92 – a few days after planting a tree – he closed his eyes and died peacefully. He is buried in a Saskatoon cemetery near two large spruce trees. His gravestone reads:

RICHARD ST. BARBE BAKER, O.B.E.
9 OCTOBER 1889 - 9 JUNE 1982
FOUNDER MEN OF THE TREES
PIONEER OF DESERT RECLAMATION THROUGH TREE PLANTING
CRUSADER FOR VIRGIN FORESTS WORLDWIDE

He had been an originator of social forestry, an educator guiding populations all over the world to rediscover old tree planting customs and to create new ones.

He had proved himself a friend and champion of indigenous people around the world. He interceded on their behalf through the media, through governmental channels, through his writings, and, most of all, through personal interactions. He shared in their special relationship to nature.

He was an ecologist long before the term was commonly known. For several decades he taught: “The forest is a society of living things, the greatest of which is the tree.”

He was the Man of the Trees, an earth healer, a visionary who saw a future of international cooperation:

I have the dream of the whole earth made green again, an earth healed and made whole through the efforts of children: children of all nations planting trees to express their special understanding of the earth as their home, children of all races holding hands, circling the earth, expressing and celebrating their special understanding of all children as their brothers and sisters.