Arboriculture's Transition into a Profession

The August 2019 edition of Arborist News had an article on the history of arboriculture and how it became a profession for arborists, but I am not going to summarise the part on history. But I do want to touch on the character below.

John Evelyn, an Englishman, published  "Sylva or, a Discourse of Forest Trees" in 1664 and called for increased tree planting and restoration of woodlands to ensure the nation's economic wellbeing. So just you know that certain country leaders were not the first to have that idea. Mr Evelyn at that time observed that tree pruning practices are poor and thus trees were full of defects. He advocated that pruning to "avoid the bark and branch tearing" and "avoid cuts close to the bole".

The author of that article (Shane A Lanigan, Chartered Arboriculturist) recalled in the 1971 being taught to make flush-cuts in order to "prevent fungal infection" and facilitate "fast and complete wound occlusion". It took Alex Shigo with books published in the 1990s and early 2000s to teach modern arborists to cease flush-cutting.

This recommendation was often forgotten, and it seemed that our industry education and standards have advanced and regressed at the same time.

Flush-cuts of tree, photo taken on Jan 2012.

Another angle of the same flush-cuts, photo taken on Jan 2012.

Back to the USA. From the early 1920s, the practice of arboriculture florished and in 1924, scientists and practitioners came together for the first 'Shade Tree Conference'. Shade tree is a "code name" for ornamental trees. An organisation not unlike a society was formed and named National Shade Tree Conference (NSTC) in 1928. In 1946 the NSTC created a fund for research and members presumably benefitted from the research. In 1961, the organisation changed its name to the "International Shade Tree Conference" and in 1976, it became the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA). Certification of arborists was first offered in the USA in 1992.

The "Certified Arborist" programme was made available in Singapore I believe in 2005, which was facilitated by the National Parks Board (NParks). After almost 15 years of seeking scientific knowledge from this esteemed society and scientists from elsewhere, I think that NParks and its arborists had made a positive impact in general on the trees under their care.