Its kind of complicated Guy due to the fact that our wonderful federal system divides and conquers!
So in the case of an activity that does not have a national standard written for it AS#### each state can develop its own specfications or regulations or code of practice (this is the case currently for tree work in Qld, NSW, and Victoria...there may be others but those are the ones I'm sure of!) and of course business and industry will over time align itself to those state benchmarks where applicable, and thereby support their retention and development etc.
Most states have a Nursery Industry association and these bodies have their own aim/benchmarks etc... We also have a national industry body, there are also all the same horticultural groups associations institutes and bodies at both a state and federal level...great eh?
Now Ross didn't do all his work on the specifications for trees alone, but he did follow through where others had tried and given up...in writing the specs he had to find an existing professional body into which these specs could fit and more importantly work...thats where NATSPEC comes in, most people won't have heard of then since it is really and building and construction based organisation
http://www.natspec.com.au/page.asp?w...%20Information
What Ross has done (with others) is to develop an assessment system which fits perfectly into the NATSPEC model and so has made it very simple and easy for large firms to use NATSPEC to specify the quality and standards for their intended plant stock for say a major development site...in exactly the same way they would specify for street lighting or benches or sliding windows etc...
As for the support that Specifying Trees has got from other industry orgs, my good friend in the Australian Institute of Horticulture is in Hawaii right (where I
was going too) now so I can't tell you with any certainty but having done some stock inspections for large landscape architect firms I can say some of the nurseries here in Qld have not even heard of NATSPEC!
Standards for tree protection (construction) amenity tree valuation and nursery production are works in progress here in Oz, and as always is the case with attempting something at a national scale very slow and laborious....but we
will get there, in the meantime we have to try our best to ensure that tree works are ubdertaken to internationally recognised best practice.