Talking the talk

Recently at work, I did a Picus on a veteran Ash tree on behalf of someone else's project. This was in the same week that I was talking to my boss (a high-up figure in the Arb Consultancy industry), who was proclaiming enthusiastically that he'd been talking to some other equally high-up consultant about the necessity to preserve veteran trees at the recent Arb Association conference. The Picus revealed about 50% hollowing from a major limb loss, so I recommended gradual reduction works, phased over a period of years.

The project was a development one, so I called the client just to explain what I had found. I was told this was a big problem, because the tree 'needed' to go to build a road into a new housing development. It appears that this road apparently over-ruled a 200 year old living organism. Anyway, I passed the buck, saying that I just did the Picus, those were my recommendations, but its not my project.

I then saw - by chance - an e-mail from my boss to these developers, saying that whilst the Picus couldn't be used to immediately justify felling for safety purposes, it could be used to indicate 'limited long-term usefulness' and so could justify removal for development. As a reminder, this is the same boss who stood there at an industry conference extolling the virtues of veteran trees. This is the same person who puts up, on linkedin and twitter and the like, endless posts about the importance of trees and the need to preserve them.

Now I hear that the council - rightly - put TPOs on the trees, and my company are supporting an objection to the TPOs.

This illustrates a massive flaw in the arb industry. Everyone talks the talk, claims to be an environmentalist, turns up at industry conferences and give speeches about how we must do more to protect our trees, integrate them into urban environments, "green the cities". But, when it comes to clients telling us what to do in light of their development (in itself, making a mockery of the British Standard for development in relation to trees), all that green-talk goes out of the window. No-one has a backbone to stand by their proclamations. I don't know if that's because people don't really believe it, or if (as I suspect) people are too scared of losing business to someone who will compromise.

If it's the latter case, then what the industry needs, as a whole, is to tighten up its ethical code. If you don't bend to a client's will, of course they're going to go to someone who will - and, since everyone is playing the game, there is always someone. However, if arboricultural consultants care about trees half as much as they publicise that they do, then if the industry united, tightened up, and advised, honestly and independently, instead of doing what clients tell them to do - then developers aren't going to go anywhere else, because every consultant will say it as it is, not what clients want. Then, the industry will truly be doing what it pretends at the moment to be doing - properly advising and caring for trees. 

Perhaps this needs the help of tree officers; at the end of the day, tree officers are all too often suspicious of consultants' motives (not without reason), whereas really we should all work together for the sake of what we (claim to?) believe in. Consultants advise, out of belief and passion for tree preservation; tree officers support it, through enforcement; and developers can't get what they want, when they want. Any consultants who do bend to the whim of their clients are quickly caught out by local authorities.

Sadly though, it will take some brave (and honest) people to stand up for what they believe in, in the face of losing business. However, if the industry is going to pat itself on the back and talk the environmental talk, then everyone should really start walking the walk - together.