His love for trees was often combined with his lifelong love for horses. In England, he went on a twenty-day horseback trip on a horse called “The Ghost,” and talked to children in seventy-two schools about the importance of trees.

A Kauri Pine in its prime
Note the man at the base of the tree, lower left.

When he was 74 years old he rode twelve hundred miles, on a dark bay horse named Rajah, from New Zealand’s northernmost kauri tree to its southernmost kauri tree. Throughout the trip he lectured on the Sahara Reclamation Program. On this horseback trip he also visited approximately ninety-two thousand New Zealand school children, and spoke to them about their tree heritage.

In 1963, when Richard was living in New Zealand, he learned that some of the California coastal redwoods were to be leveled for a new six-lane highway. Three days later he was in the United States. He met with Morris Udall, the Secretary of the Interior in Washington, D.C., and convinced him to present to Congress an alternate route for the highway.

Richard wrote: “The struggle to save the redwoods still goes on; it seems that each generation will have to fight to maintain their redwood heritage.”

Old Friends Reunited

On a return trip to Kenya in 1966, he organized the planting of ten thousand trees in ten minutes with the help of ten thousand young people. Three days later, six thousand trees were planted in about six minutes.

Richard believed that saving, replacing and multiplying trees made it “…natural to think for the future, for other people, for generations yet unborn. Planting a tree is a symbol of a looking-forward kind of action; looking forward, yet not too distantly.” Thus he inspired others to perpetuate the earth’s green mantle. To cite but one example, after a visit from him in 1979, the Western Australian branch of the Men of the Trees was established and has since planted more than seven million trees.

Richard spoke to many world leaders during his long life. He conferred with kings, sheiks, prime ministers, chiefs, presidents, rajahs, dictators, and a pope. He proclaimed the importance of trees to all of them.

Prime Minister Nehru of India said to him, “Baker, I have read your book, Sahara Challenge, three times. Now what are we going to do about the Indian deserts?”

“The answer is the same,” Richard said. “Trees against the desert.”

Richard was awarded the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1978 and the Prince of Wales became the Patron of the Men of the Trees in 1979.

Some of the most active members of the Men of the Trees have been women. In many places the name “Men of the Trees” has been changed to “International Tree Foundation.”