From the 25 to 27 of April the German Tree Care Days will be taking place in Augsburg, Germany.
The Climbers’ Forum is an integral part of this event, delving into matters relating to practical arboriculture during the three days. Last year’s event was a blast, the first edition post-COVID, and we intend to continue building on that momentum. The Tree Care Days have been taking place since 1993 and are a unique and premium event, bringing together researchers, representatives of cities and communes, practising arborists, manufacturers, vendors and many more. The whole event – the talks in Climbers’ Forum as well as the academic talks – are simultaneously translated between German and English.
For more info and the full program, visit the website.
Whilst we were working on the program for this year I thought we could build it around keynote talks that are especially relevant – but going through the list I realised that in their own way, all the talks are important and timely. Taken together… well, let’s just say that I am excited about hearing what the speakers have to tell on their chosen subjects.
This year, amongst other things, we will be taking a deeper look at anchor points and anchor point failures. This is partly due to a cluster of incidents in Germany in 2020, but also based upon personal experience when training or doing workshops: so many reports of close shaves or incidents with a lucky outcome. Clearly, this is a topic where we need to improve our understanding of what is going wrong. You can choose 1000 good anchor points and make a bad call on one – and that is all that it takes.
After all: Every anchor point matters.
Then we will be spending half a day discussing aerial rescue, from basics all the way through to complex rescue scenarios as well as the interface with rescue services. This is a topic we have focused on in the past, but it has been a while now, so I am looking forwards to these demonstrations.
We will be continuing the on-going discussion regarding the preservation of veteran trees, using worked examples, exploring arguments versus clients to explain the importance of preserving such trees as well as hands-on, practical advice on how to work on them.
A further topic will be taking a closer look at alternative transport concepts in tree care. In view of how cities are changing with the creation of low emission zones and the like as well as as a step towards reducing our dependency on fossile fuels this seems like an important issue to address in terms of opportunities it offers as well as limits. We will be hearing from people who have been using cargo bikes for many years, we will have various rigs on site to discuss as well as manufacturers exhibiting in the trade show.
We will also spend half a day on showcasing rigging topics as well as putting a spot light on health and safety matters. Many manufacturers and vendors use this event to present their new products, this year the trade show floor will increase in size again…
If you have not yet been to this event, please consider yourself warmly invited. One of the things I love is how this is such a vibrant illustration of climbers’ culture in arboriculture, allowing for engaged, competent and respectful dialogue and interaction. Every time I come away from the Tree Care Days feeling enriched and content.
Travel-wise you can travel Augsburg is an easy destination to reach by train, should you be coming from further afield, you can fly into Munich, from there it is a short trip by train. For accommodation see here.
So, hopefully we get to meet up in April.