Men Of The Trees was born out of Kenya’s long history of deforestation prior to the arrival of outside influences, the indigenous people’s farming practices involved the removal of trees.

During the Roman occupancy around the 5th century, land was cleared to grow wheat crops. Later the Arabs introduced goats which degraded land through grazing. In the 14th century, Vasco de Gama arrived in Africa and more land was cleared, this time for spice plantations. In the 1890s, when Kenya became a British colony, larger tracts of lands were cleared for crops such as coffee. Around the same time gold was discovered, and in the 1920s there was a gold rush in Kenya. These and other mining activities have also contributed to further deforestation.

Richard St. Barbe Baker was an English botanist and environmental activist. While studying at Cambridge, he realised that deforestation results in soil-loss problems, a decline in habitat and biodiversity, and also in quality of life. When he graduated, he went to Kenya where he saw centuries of land mismanagement dating back to the wheat farming of the Roman Empire and the grazing of goats introduced by Arabs (Wikipedia).

In 1922 he set up a tree nursery with the Kikuyu (Swahili) tribe and founded the organisation, Men Of The Trees. The name originates from Kikuyu words ‘Watu Wa Miti’ translates as: