Quote:
Originally Posted by mdvaden  Personally, I think the climbing issue is irrelvant. |
I think it's extremely relevant and unfortunately it was a USA idea for a club like ISA to do such a thing. Europe, UK, Australia and NZ all have stringent competencies in climbing.
The arborist qualification is the coal face trades level. Where you'd expect like getting a plumber or electrician the person could deal with the situation, a hung up limb, a removal, prune etc. Imagine having an electrician visit who tells you he only does lights not power points?
The ISA failed miserably in this area and distorted the value and skills of arborists world wide. Fortunately their qualifications mean little here and I hope it stays that way.
And whilst I'm on
lets look at another matter.
As mentioned above degreed people or people who spent years in foresty, turf care, general horticulture etc do a multiple choice $300 test and bingo, now they're an arborist. With that type of qualification you'd safely say just about anyone in out door landscape/hort industry would gain there cert calling themselves an arborist ... then go and have a look at this thread and note my comment in post 5
Arb 2, Class 2007 - Mt Wilson
How would you feel being an arborist in Australia and the bloke standing next to you with an ISA cert thinks he's the same? I bet you'd think it sucks. And frankly I do. It takes years here with practical and desk theory and exams that are not multiple choice which have to be passed. We had tree reports to write, ID 60 trees from leaf/fruit samples in a room etc. Our pass rate was 80% also.