arb culture

"Or Contact this company Cheshire Woodlands | home sure some one will have your answer there" Or, (and here's a really crazy idea) someone could give me a worked example that they don't mind me commenting on. (Tony, I don't include you in my exasperation. I know you are working on it )

Went into surveying and consultancy working for an established company. I'm now running my own successful and growing business undertaking tree surveys for a wide range of clients. I'm not sure I would be taken seriously by most planning departments/clients without the degree. The knowledge and skills I got from doing my degree have been incredibly useful in running the business, and as a consulting arb.

Depends on what you want to do; but for me, it was absolutely worth it.

A scene... Hmm, I'm not sure what to suggest, but ideally there would be quite a lot of trees, and in a format which allows for some funky maths, an excel document would be ideal. Also, the example would have to be the work of the person supplying it. I wouldn't want to use one without the author's permission, even if it is in the public domain.

Tony, The ISA ones are free to download. Is that any help?

Still no worked examples then?

I know. It amazes me what Julian gives away for free. I wish there were more like him.

Paul, I may have made some wrong assumptions about the AA; I'll think on it and get back to you when I've got a bit more time. For now though, "maybe the lightbulb's just switched on, are you meaning we should promote all contractors undertaknig good tree care and not just ACs & RCs? If so how do we know if they don't present themselves for audit/assessment?" really sums up what I'm trying to say, and also highlights the inherent difficulty of achieving it. By the way, well done for coming on here, you are doing an excellent job answering everyone's questions. None of my comments are in any way intended to criticise you or your work.

Oh, and thanks Marcus!

Rather than bombard Julian with requests for this (I'm sure he is busy enough), is there any chance we can get a link to a download on here?

I like your thinking meep. I'm a professional member of the AA and I like the newsletter and the arb journal. I also like the way that the AA are always so helpful when I ring them with questions. I like the way the AA tries to speak out for arboriculture when it comes to new legislation such as changes to HSE and planning law. I like the letters after my name, especially the way that many people think that M.Arbor.A stands for some sort of masters qualification, or even chartered status. I would also like to be able to say they promote good tree care through encouraging good arboricultural practice. But unfortunately the AARC and the AAAC schemes prevent them being able to do so. The AA only promote those people who are AARC or AAAC rather than helping the general public understand the myriad of other schemes/qualifications in existance, eg ISO, ISA, ICF, Trustmark, NPTC, RFS, Tech Cert, LANTRA etc. If the AA were able to be unbiased about it they could make a huge impact in helping to sort out the mess of qualifications and accreditation. Unfortunately they can only promote their own (money making) scheme. This is where the conflict of interest comes in to play. Oops, sorry, I was trying to be positive.

I think Andy and Skyhuck are on to something here.

It strikes me that many of the criticisms I hear about the AA are due (at least in part) to the activities of the approved contractor/consultant schemes. The other half of the AA seems to attract a lot less criticism. Perhaps there is a conflict of interest within the organisation due to the fact that one side of the AA is about promoting good arboriculture, and the other half of the AA is about promoting its accredited contractors/consultants to the disbenefit of everyone else, including many of its own members. I'm not knocking the AA, I'm a professional member and happy with that, but I would be even happier being a member if the AA just got rid of the accreditation schemes - there are other and better ways of choosing a good contractor or consultant, and I think the schemes just cause further confusion among the general public.

Wow, that's a bad day. Wasn't there a risk of explosion with all that methane floating about:confused1:

Now now Pete. Are you being provocative again? How's things anyway, not heard from you for a while.

No worries. I got the info from Growth and Differentiation in Plants, 3rd edition by P.F.Wareing and I.D.J.Phillips. An interesting book, but can be a bit heavy going at times. I don't mind admitting that I needed to use a biology dictionary to help me understand it in some places.

The four figure sum was probably a lot less than it would cost to inspect 80000 trees though. So perhaps Islington have quantified the risks from their entire tree stock and decided it's cheaper just to pay out when they are liable for falling branches rather than undertake the inspections. Thus allowing resources to be redirected to areas of much higher risk, such as uneven pavements.

After digging out the dusty text books I can tell you that both geotropism and gravitropism are correct (or at least they were in 1981). If you want to get even more precise, your fungi might even be exhibiting diagravitropic or perhaps even plagiogravitropic (depending on the angle) reiterative growth.

What sort of jobs/contracts do you have in mind treesnakey?

But it's not dead.

I'm a member. When I first set up on my own as a one man band they gave me a lot of advice which was very useful. The amount they saved me in tax and banking charges alone paid for at least the first three years of membership. However, now I'm a bit more established I'm less sure of the benefits of being a member. Can be good for networking though if you're into that sort of thing.

Thanks Chris. That's a bit clearer now. I know that the LPAs I deal with usually require bat surveys to be done by a licensed surveyor when done as part of a planning application. I assume that this is because such surveys would often need to be invasive, or that proposals might involve potentially drastic changes to habitat. I don't have any professional involvement with bats (as you can probably guess) but they are such interesting creatures that I think I might do some training just out of curiosity.

That's quite a long time. You are right to warn people about the level of quals required to do a bat survey. I've come across a few arbs (not going to mention names) who do bat surveys, and I'm not entirely certain of their qualifications. I'm guessing you need a license to survey and make recommendations about bats.

A sensible point made there ChrisG. I know it's a bit like asking how long is a piece of string - but given a bit of commitment, how long would it be likely to take to become a qualified bat surveyor when starting pretty much from scratch.