On Sustainability.

The concept of sustainability has been on my mind recently.

The Meriam-Webster dictionary defines sustainable as: able to be used without being completely used up or destroyed; involving methods that do not completely use up or destroy natural resources; able to last or continue for a long time.

As a contract climber and production climber, sustainability is everything in regards to our physical health and well being. The number one natural resource climbing arborists have at our disposal is our physical ability to climb and deliver quality arboricultural practices. Eating well and living well go a long, long way in this industry, not to mention staying extremely safe day after day. At the end of the day, it's our body and physical skill that we depend on to get paid. Injuries will not allow us to deliver the product that we're promising to deliver, so injury will no doubt decrease value. Growing old is unavoidable and personally I try to avoid thinking about what's going to happen when my body won't allow me to climb anymore. I'll save that depressing topic for another post.

Aside from the physical aspect of arboriculture, I am also fascinated with the science of trees and their ability to adapt and change to their surroundings so well. They allocate their resources in truly amazing ways to stay alive for a long time. Of course, isn't that what sustainability is? Never using more than we have, never taking more than we need, always in motion.  I believe Shigo described it as balance in Modern Arboriculture, like two oscillating pumps that when at rest leads to system failure. In this instance, we can look at trees themselves for an illustration of sustainability in practice.

So this is the question really: do trees NEED arborists to successfully exist? They absolutely do not. Trees all over the world live long and healthy lives without ever being touched or even seen by an arborist. It's PEOPLE that need arborists for trees to survive. The critical thing to understand about the science of arboriculture is that it deals just as much with trees and is it does with people. Unfortunately trees can't pay us, and so even though in our idealist minds we say that we're in it to keep trees healthy, our real job is to keep the relationship between trees and people healthy. A tree by itself is completely sustainable (in theory). But, put that same tree in someone's front yard and now all of sudden you need an arborist to maintain that sustainability. The arborist's true job is to act as a translator between tree and owner.

I guess my ultimate point is that our sustainability as arborists is really the relationship with have with both trees and people. Safety is our understanding of the trees structure and a carefully tuned attention to detail (ie. cracks, soil heaving, conks and fungal bodies etc.) in order to keep people around trees safe. Physical well being may be found in our climbing styles and what systems we employ to climb specific types of trees because of how they are physcially developed (ie. extremely large, broad trees vs. a rather slender, crowded young crown). And the business of arboriculture almost depends more on the people that own the trees rather than the specimens themselves (ie. you can't run a successful business without getting paid).

Conclusion: To be a great (climbing) arborist, to last and continue for a long time: eat well, climb high, double check, prune more, remove less and always, always say thank you.