Certified Arborists

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Imma tree surgeon.
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It's not unusual. Educational certification with limited field experience is common in many occupations, particularly in the manual trades in Europe, I do believe. (Nate, please correct me if I'm wrong). There are additional levels of accreditation beyond the initial one, that includes experience in the field.

I think that the point is, the certification is a type of quality assurance process, a protection against laymen from offering services that may be detrimental to the consumer, due to no level of skill. It also helps eliminate unfair competition, untrained people hanging a shingle outside their door and offering a service for which they are not qualified. Without some standards, it can be a free for all out there, given the unwise public.

I guess that in some places, becoming qualified is not dependent on having a certification, work learning opportunities are still available, like being an arborist in the states. In some trades in other places, that isn't the case, you can't progress without first having the piece of paper. Good and bad in both systems it seems.
 
I agree, Jay. But the ISA form goes far beyond knowledge, skill and qualification levels.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a drop in membership from this. It just gets to deep into ones personal life about past events that shouldn't matter with what they're doing today.

After thinking more about it the question that really gnaws at me is, what are they going to do with the information? I assume that someone wants to do some weeding of craft to get the riff raff out of the CA program. And based on what you did in the past. If you're the complete honest type who would divulge every little misdemeanor as a troubled youth you could get your CA cert revoked. Then if you omit any infractions and they find out you did, then you stand to have your cert revoked again. And who's going to make those decisions? The whole thing stinks.

It is not tree skills or qualification related at all. It just stands to hurt more people in the business than help.

It's a real black eye for the ISA to even be thinking along these lines.
 
That article in Arborist News only talks about the Code of Ethics, which I do not have a problem with at all. I haven't read it yet, but I'll probably sign it without second thoughts.

However, the article does not mention the questions about criminal past which I take serious issue with, and I believe is what most everyone else here is upset about. I have yet to see a satisfactory explanation of this action from ISA.
 
Looks like it's time to go back to MCA for me.

Gerry summed it up well. Acting on a customer ethics complaint I can give a nod to. Going on a fishing expedition is bullshit.
 
Youse guyse need to start/get involved with your STATE arborists' associations......:D

I second that! The CA. arborist association holds workshops designed for the working tree worker out in the field. Practical, hands on workshops.
For a reasonable price.
 
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