Doing Better
A lot of the topics I write focus on how to improve the way trees are cared for. I recently realized that a large number of arborists don’t necessarily have the power to make decisions about the trees they work with, though. With that in mind, and after a vote on the Tree First Instagram, this article would be the one written next:
How Can Tree Workers be Better Stewards of Trees?
While I don’t claim to have all of the answers, I wonder about them often. The answers will always grow and evolve. Tree stewardship is the essence of all of our work–it is why we started our own practice.
A long time ago, I worked for a tree company whose main goal was to make money to send the boss on vacations. You know, that kind of tree company.
After becoming frustrated irreparably with this tree company’s disinterest in real tree care, I decided to leave. A company that flaunts destroying and maiming trees for 25 years isn’t a team I wanted to be on anymore.
But not everyone needs to up and leave their job to start their own practice to take better care of trees. There are many ways to be better that can be done immediately—there are other ways, too, that take a career of honing.
So, how can you actually influence the trees you work with in a positive way? How can you implement tree stewardship while working out with the crew?
I wrote this article assuming that you know why tree stewardship is important. To call yourself an arborist, you have to work for the trees. Whether you’re the PHC tech, the climber, the sales manager—whatever—you ought to benefit the tree or do the least amount of damage to accomplish the objective.
The Next Steps for the Modern Arborist
Don’t Assume
Know Your Place
Think About Trees
Improve Your Climbing
Get bigger
1. Don’t Assume
I have a lot of experience being a worker who was dissatisfied with the work orders I’d receive. I am lucky enough to have begun my tree biology education before working in tree care, and I realize most folks work it the other way around.
I had wrongfully assumed that the salespeople and company were working for the tree. In this experience, they weren’t. They were chasing after the upkeep of their overhead operating costs, usually by selling expensive, excessive, and detrimental operations on trees while calling it tree care.
And this is the norm. There are failures at every part of the Big Arb business model. From the estimating, from the work specifications, to the cutting itself. When you are just a worker, it is very difficult to ensure quality across the board.
Not assuming means looking closely at work orders, objectives, and safety. We’ve all heard horror stories of companies cutting corners in this department.
It is easy to skate by ANSI and OSHA regulations. Most of the standards are great, but no enforcement exists, no quality control at any part of the tree industry. Being “accredited” means very little for actually taking care of trees. All of us in the industry know that daily work can be very, very wild.
You have to be your quality control. You have to take your role seriously. You have to care.
2. Know Your Place
Your relationship with your company is reciprocal. If you become better, the company you are with becomes better. Sometimes the company doesn’t know what better looks like, and you’ll have to be able to explain better practices and choices.
You may be an arborist, but the homeowner has the greatest influence on the tree. And you ought to inform them of this! You don’t have to be a salesperson to do this; you just have to be someone who cares. You facilitate their management decisions with the tree.
This means disclosing that removing an entire large limb off of this silver maple only to improve the view of the lake is unnecessary when a simple reduction will do the trick. People almost always veer towards not maiming their trees when given all the relevant information.
Your place is the arbiter for trees, their translator. It has to be you who speaks up for them. What else are you practicing for? Caring is part of the natural progression of your skills–caring makes you better. This is what people expect from arborists.
3. Think About Trees
ISA’s certifications aim to certify that the tree workers have a minimum understanding of tree biology. But it is often mistaken as expertise by homeowners and arborists alike. It, unfortunately, often represents the end of an arborist’s education.
Do not only read industry literature! Some of it is awesome and fascinating, and exploring that body of work is perfectly fine. But remember, its agenda is to perpetuate the industry from whence it came. It sometimes advocates for practices meant to keep workers working, not benefiting the tree. And it doesn’t do a great job of making that distinction. External literature, however, doesn’t have the bias that industry literature has.
Expanding our understanding of trees is something we ought to be doing all of the time. You should not expect to finish learning about trees—regardless of your specific domain of tree work. Whether it be climbing, PHC, sales—whatever—there are areas in each specialty that need re-examining through an environmental lens. Tree science is part of an ever-growing body of environmental science, and it is the nature of science to advance and change.
Doing things “the way they’ve always been done” is a classic old-school mistake. We stopped transporting firewood, right? We stopped using DDT, right? Well, as environmentalism is becoming more and more important, the time is right to start caring.
Even more modern solutions are here. Even more knowledge is published outside of the industry’s publications. Caring just slightly more about trees will be enough propulsion to seek these things out.
4. Improve your Climbing
Improving your climbing is fundamentally the best thing climbers can do for the tree. This means a lot of things:
The periphery of the crown is where the real pruning takes place. Hugging close to the trunk while making only large removal cuts while pruning is hackery and horrible for large trees. Not being able to navigate to the branch tips disqualifies you as a good climber. The same goes for relying on spurs to do so. Plain and simple.
There is no longer any viable excuse to not at least climb spurless. There are countless resources online and plenty of seminars and workshops where you can begin re-learning the ropes. Proper climbing is not a fringe technique; it is widely available and affordable and is the bare minimum.
If the work order specs are highly specific, you have to understand what they mean and be able to get into a comfortable work position at the branch tips to satisfy the work order. If the pruning specifications are not very specific, it is still up to you to make sure they are quality cuts.
Climbers have a great influence on the tree. The quality of their work can either prolong or cut the tree’s lifespan in half, so it is important they care about the trees they work with. We should aim at fluid and safe climbing technique with a deep comprehension of pruning science. The quality of tree care is only as good as the hand that cuts, or sometimes, that hand doesn’t cut the biggest limb.
5. Get Bigger
We tend to forget the bigger picture when we’re working in the day-to-day mentality. Taking care of our environment is a human duty, and taking care of trees is literally one of the most influential parts of that. The role of the true arborist has global significance.
Trees aren’t just big decorations. They’re living things that have vital ecosystem functions. Without them, the planet doesn’t work. The big and old trees do the heavy lifting in carbon sequestration, not the saplings. Big and old trees offer the most habitat for wildlife. Big and old trees provide shade, intercept rain, protect soils, and so much more.
Folks think it’s fine to take their tree down. What’s one tree? There’s plenty of others. This type of thinking is part of the problem. Arbitrarily destroying trees for simple human whims is a violation of the rights of nature.
Most people don’t pay attention to trees. It’s up to us arborists to explain their importance. When customers are requesting your services, it isn’t through a lens of environmental responsibility. We have to assign trees their importance. We have to be the voice for trees, working for them, not against them. If not us, then who?
The modern approach is to care about every tree in the urban and suburban world. Each tree matters more since there are so few of them compared to pre-development.
Caring is Hard
Working with trees requires care. It isn’t just about stopping a tree from being needlessly removed. The little things add up: not cutting limbs out of your way while climbing, not spraying trees for every little insect that depends on trees to survive, or not condemning every old and less-than-perfect tree.
Sometimes it might be easier to just comply and get the work done. I understand that.
On the other hand: arborists have one of the most difficult jobs in the world. Most like it that way; that’s part of the appeal. To test oneself, do what others won’t do, and develop a unique combination of skills. Skills like climbing, disease treatment, wildlife preservation, and many others. And now we add another: Caring. Arborists thrive on challenges, and that’s how I know we can do this.