FINDING SHARED GROUND
As a utility arborist, I had to learn to answer those diffi-
cult questions that had come up when I was consulting.
It turned out that what appeared to be aggressive
pruning was often just the removal of water sprouts
that had regrown from the previous maintenance cycles.
When we needed to prune a significant amount of live
tissue to mitigate unacceptable risk, local urban for-
esters often still opted to keep the tree in the hopes
that it would recover, and we would instead team
up on other trees that posed more immediate risk.
Maintenance decisions were often dictated by the utili-
ty's need to balance pruning frequency with regulations:
as a monopoly, the utility was limited in how much it
could charge, which included tree maintenance costs.
Infrastructure was routinely updated and improved,
hardening the system against tree-caused outages.
The utility employed skilled arborists to ensure that
UVM work was performed according to industry
standards and best practices. Utility pruning is always
a tradeoff between the appearance of the trees and
the safety and reliability of a critical service. Most
importantly, hazards to human health and well-being
were mitigated: when the power goes out, people
suffer and can be endangered. The communities we
served were generally satisfied with the work we per-
formed, and local foresters worked with us so we
could serve our mutual and separate stakeholders.
I entered the urban forestry world specifically because
I am passionate about trees and people. As long as we
keep the intersection between trees and people in the
forefront of our conversations, urban foresters and
other natural resource managers can work together
to manage our trees ethically and sustainably. We'll
likely also find that we have quite a lot in common.
Urban clearance pruning can be a tradeoff between appearance and safety,
but sometimes they mesh beautifully, as with this weeping European beech
(Fagus sylvatica 'Pendula') in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York City.
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