This seminar occurred on the 17th of February 2019 in Pune, India. It brought arboriculture to the table of planning and infrastructure in Indian cities. Tree consultants from India, the UK and Singapore presented to architects, landscapers, municipal corporations and other professional bodies involved with trees.
There were several good speakers with different experiences and backgrounds. They provided us with different views on current techniques and practices from around the world. It was a refreshing experience when arboriculture is currently rather rare in India.
Island Lescure, director and consulting arborist of Treescapes, was there to speak about the benefits and drawbacks of trees in urban spaces and how to improve matters. This is important as engineers and town planners need to be made aware of the importance trees can bring to improve social wellbeing, storm water management systems, energy savings and many other social, ecological and environmental aspects of our lives. Trees enhance our lives: this can even be worked out in a monetary way by using tools such as itreetools.org. But these trees need appropriate installation and management.
Our associate, Jonas Suchanek, executive and climbing arborist of TreeCare India, was also present to give a demonstration of safe climbing techniques used around the world. This evoked quite a bit of interest (as fit young men swinging around in trees usually do) to improve the safety and efficiency of staff members of various parties present who climb trees. The current method of climbing and working in trees is both very safe and efficient. Short training courses can be provided.
We hope to see more of these sorts of events in India in the future. This will bring awareness of trees to people and it will enable us to improve ourselves and share our experiences. For a first event, it was a great success!
