Review of ‘All Our Yesterdays: Memories of a forester in Nigeria, 1950–1962 and An Earthly Paradise: Memories of a forester in the Bechuanaland Protectorate/ Botswana, 1963– 1968’, by P. W. T. Henry

A surprisingly large number of colonial foresters once stationed in Nigeria have written prolifically about their experiences and observations in Africa. Perhaps best known are the memoirs of the colourful Richard St Barbe Baker, founder of the early environmentalist movement Men of the Trees, which include such vivid (if perhaps not entirely reliable) accounts of the Kikuyu-speaking people in Kenya and the Edo in Nigeria that they merited a preface by Bronislaw Malinowski. Philip Allison published in the Journal of African History, whilst the journals Farm and Forest and in particular The Nigerian Field – founded in 1930 to encourage ‘interest in the flora and fauna of Nigeria’ and still going strong today – contain countless articles by foresters, such as R. H. Hide's piece on Bini botanical knowledge, R. W. J. Keay's work on the Sobo Plains and Old Oyo, and J. F. Redhead's …