Young people wanted in UK forestry amid critical shortage of tree surgeons
When Kevin Martin was a child he spent days beneath the canopy of Hampshire woodlands while his father, a tree surgeon, scaled the heights of oak and ash above him.
Twenty years later, with a degree and with research for a master’s under way, Martin is in charge of tending to the 14,000 trees at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew. With trees at the forefront of UK strategies to reach net zero by 2050, Martin and others like him are key professionals on the frontline of the fight to mitigate the impact of climate change and adapt to the changing conditions.
But the army of tree experts needed to fulfil the government’s promise to increase tree planting to 30,000 hectares a year (90m-120m trees) by the end of 2024 is nowhere to be seen. Skills shortages in arboriculture and forestry are at critical levels, and a new generation is not being recruited to take over from an ageing workforce. A report from the Institute of Chartered Foresters says the industry needs to recruit 70% more people to meet planting targets set by government and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (IPCC)
“We need to have a big campaign using social media, public billboards, television, to start recruiting to fill this skills shortage,” said Martin. “It needs to come from industry, but it also needs to be addressed in education when kids are starting to choose what subjects they are interested in. We need to change the culture in education, which is very much that you only go into land-based industries if you are thick – which is absolutely not the case. Everyone needs to be involved in this.”
Within the industry there is a degree of soul-searching going on to understand why young people are not coming through to the profession. Outdated
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