Arborcamp 2010

As many of you know, the 2009 Victorian Arborcamp was postponed in the wake of the devastating Black Saturday bushfires.  Arborists from all over Victoria – and some from further afield – put their normal work on hold as we battled to clear roads, take down hazardous trees and make the damaged areas safe for residents to come back to.  As time went by, the focus of the work changed from dealing with the immediate hazards, to starting to take a more long-term view, and looking at which trees had the potential to survive.  It was only fitting therefore that the theme for this year’s Arborcamp was ‘Dealing with Fire-Damaged Trees’.

The weekend kicked off with a full day workshop on the subject on Friday, with participants taking a short drive out from the camp to visit the blackened forest nearby.  Ben Kenyon of Homewood Consulting led a Walk And Talk through the national park, focusing on particularly dangerous trees and sharing with the group some of the techniques and systems he and his company have developed for identifying hazardous trees in the aftermath of a major fire, recording those trees which were identified, and following up to make sure that any recommended work had been done.

After the talk, the group split into two, and had the opportunity to work on felling two large fire-damaged trees, which had been identified by the DSE as posing a risk to the nearby road.  Richard Kenyon of Tree Tactics and Joe Harris of The Tree Works discussed and demonstrated some techniques used to deal with extremely fire-damaged trees; the group then applied these techniques to the trees in question.  Everything went according to plan, and the great trunks crashed down into the forest away from the road – hats off to Lee Simmonds, a student from NMIT, who stepped up to the challenge and felled the second tree.

After lunch, Lee Guppy from Tree Tactics demonstrated their methods of making habitat holes in fire-damaged trees, which the group was very interested in.  A PDF of the habitat hole sizes is now available from the downloads section of the website.  The group then went back to one of the trees that had been identified as hazardous that morning, to watch the demonstration of several techniques for climbing and pruning severely fire-damaged trees.  Unfortunately they also got to watch a half-hour demonstration of how not to get a throwline into a tree, which just about all of the instructors took part in.

Meanwhile, back at the camp, many of the usual activities were already up and running.  As with all such events, the VTIO relies on the support of its sponsors: the 2010 Arborcamp could not have occurred without our Gold Sponsor, Canning’s Outdoor Power Equipment of Mt Waverley.  Canning’s are always ready to offer their support to the industry, particularly through their sponsorship of events such as Arborcamp and the annual Victorian Tree Climbing Competition.

By the time that the (somewhat sooty) workshop participants made their way back to the camp, Matt Weatherhead of Tree Designs already had The Big Swing in operation, and students from Swinburne and ECG were taking down some large eucalypts near the scout hut.  The fire-damaged trees workshop wrapped up just as the first spots of rain were beginning to fall, and everyone made their way back to the Arbordome for a fascinating talk by Dr Greg Moore on bushfire-affected trees.  Dr Moore is a renowned expert on the behaviour of trees following fire, and both his talk and his slides let the audience share some of his extensive knowledge of the subject.

Saturday turned out to be a lovely day, and was jam-packed with a huge range of workshops and activities.  There was the planting and pleaching workshop, which has progressively planted a couple of trees at each Arborcamp.  The result is starting to become a real feature of the Mt Erica Scout Camp.

Later in the morning Scott Sharpe ran a highly successful workshop on the various Single Rope Technique systems, and on SRT setup and methods.  There was a lot of interest in Scott’s SRT rig, which he is calling “The Tree Walker”: PDFs of this and several other setups will soon be available to download from the VTIO website.

Up on the hill Mark Haywood ran a pole-rescue workshop, demonstrating some of the key skills which anyone facing the challenge of rescuing an injured climber from their spurs should know.  It was a timely reminder of how challenging a pole-rescue can be, and how important it is to prepare for it properly.  We hope to also present a PDF summary of Mark’s workshop for download as soon as possible.

Meanwhile the crate climb, big swing and axe-throwing competition were all in full swing, and climbers were having a go at the Open Masters tree.  Julie Kenyon ran a huge range of activities for the kids, and somehow managed to keep (almost) everyone out of trouble: an incredible effort given the amount of energy the kids were expending!  As the evening approached our excellent MC Shane Hall of Council Arboriculture Victoria summoned everyone into the Arbordome for the Talent Quest.

And so another Arborcamp has been and gone.  It was particularly notable for the enormous amount of enthusiasm and interest from the participants, all of whom were keen both to learn, and to share what they had been thinking about and working on.  It’s easy to forget sometimes, but the Arborcamp motto really sums it up well: “Bringing Tree People Together.”  Some of the conversations that evening were the start of exciting and original techniques and ideas, or the foundation of new friendships.

The VTIO would particularly like to thank our Gold Sponsor, Cannings Outdoor Power Equipment of Mt Waverley.  Cannings has been a leading importer, manufacturer, distributor and retailer in the Outdoor Power Equipment Industry for over 50 years, as well as being importers and suppliers of high quality Yale ropes, world standard climbing gear and industrial height safety equipment and techniques, through the ATRAES brand.  Cannings are always ready to offer their support to the industry, particularly through their sponsorship of events such as Arborcamp and the annual Victorian Tree Climbing Competition.

The VTIO relies on the support of its sponsors to continue to host events such as Arborcamp and the annual Victorian Tree Climbing Competition.  We would like to thank our Silver Sponsors: Bandit Tree Equipment; Treegear; and Vermeer.  All put in to help fund the event, and were there on the day to give their support to the industry, and to demonstrate their products.

In addition, Arborcamp was held with the support of our Trade Sponsors.  The VTIO would like to thank Arbormaster; Rayco; Arbortrim; Citywide Tree Care and Mt William Tree Nursery.

The next Victorian Arborcamp will be held in 2012, as next year sees the world Arborcamp coming to Australia for the first time, and we will be putting our energies toward helping with that.   Hopefully we will see you all there, but if not, see you in 2012!