Dream job for tree-lover

EASTWOODHILL: Martin Weaver is the curator of Eastwoodhill Arboretum. Picture by Liam Clayton

Growing up surrounded by historic woodlands in the United Kingdom meant Martin Weaver developed a love for trees at a young age.

Martin is 40 years old and was born in Gloucester.

“In Gloucestershire there is a wealth of woodlands that have royal status where big oak plantations were used to build ships in the Napoleonic wars.”

Next to that woodland is the Cotswold where varied types of trees grew.

“I found myself in the summer months, aged 16, working in the forests that had woodland management plans that were 400 years old,” he said.

“I felt like a tiny dot working around these humongous trees.”

He decided to go to Hartpury Agricultural College after high school, where he studied for three years.

“It was weird . . . I ended up excelling. It was beyond my expectations.”

He then went to university where he studied a Bachelor of Forestry.

In his last year of university he had to do a work placement. He ended up doing individual tree inspections and surveys of trees at Chiltern Hills just outside Buckinghamshire.

In the UK there is the Occupiers' Liability Act 1957 which means that if you have trees on your property you must know more about that tree than someone not on your property.

“You must make sure it doesn't cause damage or even death,” Martin said.

“With trees, people either love them or hate them. Someone will moan about it either way.”

After that he went on to work for the Devon County Council as a highway tree inspector.

“Every tree is plotted on a mapping database. I had to make sure that it was on the map correctly and that all the data about the tree was included.

“Inspectors have to make sure they are doing as much as possible to prevent a tree failing.”

He spent eight years with the Devon Council and while there, he met his wife Lindsay. He says it's a funny story about how they met.

“I wasn't aware of it at the time but when I went in for an interview, Lindsay was checking me out. And once I got the job she invited me to her birthday party, the first week I started working there.”

It was a true office romance.

“Within a couple of months we were holidaying in Barcelona while watching the 2003 Rugby World cup finals.”

But a restructure in the office meant Lindsay and Martin ended up working back-to-back in the same office, “which was too much for both of us — we were way too close.”

In 2008, the Global Financial Crisis happened.

“This meant all the funding for local authorities was stripped. Within a month I had become a telephonist.

“I was having the same conversation with people about trees. They would call saying ‘there's this tree and . . .' and I would have to say that ‘unless the tree is falling over or dangerous there's nothing we can do as we have no money'. This meant I couldn't physically inspect the tree. It got boring really quickly,” he said.

He was 28 at the time and decided it was time for a change. Martin found himself a new job working for a sales company, but it was still related to trees.

He would travel around England, selling a pavement system that would create room for tree roots to grow in urban environments.

“The big old trees around England grew and because engineering was still a new industry, the roots moved faster than the engineers.”

Working for the business meant that he had to travel around England most of the week.

“It was constant and a bit harsh, especially for my wife Lindsay.”

In 2012, they thought maybe it was time to move to New Zealand.

Early on in their relationship, Lindsay told Martin about how her dad was a civil engineer and worked in Greymouth in 1996.

She had lived in New Zealand for about 18 months when she was in her gap year. She loved it and didn't want to return to the UK but because of circumstances at the time, all her family moved back.

Martin and Lindsay decided to travel to New Zealand and hire a campervan so they could visit towns and cities. This meant if a job came up, they would know what to expect.

“Funny story really — we got into Gisborne on a Sunday night and there was nothing going on. We got to the Customhouse Street roundabout and turned right to go to The Cut. We thought it was nice but we decided that if a job came up here we wouldn't take it.”

They continued on driving to Napier that night.

Based on their trip experiences, they decided to make the move to New Zealand. Martin thought it would take a while to get his visa and passport sorted, but within four weeks it arrived.

“That's when I thought ‘Oh sh**! I need to tell my parents'.”

After sorting out things in the UK they made the move to Auckland in 2013.

Lindsay had a job working for Citycare.

Martin had planned to have a break and get used to New Zealand but before he knew it, he was having an interview via Skype while still in the UK for an arboriculture and landscape advisor position with the Auckland City Council.

The job in Auckland was similar to his previous roles in Devon.

After about nine months he went to work for one of New Zealand's biggest arboriculture consultancies, Arborlab.

Then he was offered a job with Asplundh, New Zealand's premier vegetation control company.

“It was such an extremely busy year when I worked there. I was dealing with multi-million dollar tenders.”

At that point in their lives, their first son, Arthur, was born through IVF.

While living in Auckland, they had to keep moving from house-to-house as they were being sold from under them.

It was hard to find a home that suited the new family, so they starting thinking about moving to somewhere else.

Lindsay was looking for a job and found one at the Gisborne District Council.

“I said to her, ‘Do you remember that conversation we had about the one place we didn't want to move to — Gisborne?' ”

When she visited Gisborne for a job interview her then boss showed her around. That was when Lindsay realised how nice Gisborne was — especially the coastlines.

Martin went online to search for information about Gisborne and when he saw how cheap the houses were, they decided to make the move to Gisborne.

The first weekend they came here, they found a house they instantly fell in love with. They purchased it and decided to set up their new life in Gisborne.

Martin used the move as a chance to pursue his original ‘plan of relaxing' by becoming a stay-at-home dad.

However, after a while Martin decided it was time to get back into work. Arthur was also getting to the age where he would benefit from being at kindergarten.

He applied for a cemetery management role with GDC, a role that gave him the chance to learn about tikanga, tangi and te ao Maori.

Then he saw an advertisement for the position of the curator of Eastwoodhill Aboretum.

Curators are meant to live on the property but he did not want to, so he didn't get the job the first time he applied — but then he saw it advertised again and he reapplied. This time he was successful.

Martin has been the curator for 18 months now and absolutely loves it.

“It's a dream working in a job that is my passion.”

His work at Eastwoodhill entails looking after the trees and making sure everything runs properly.

“It's different working in the charity sector. There are great people working here.Everything is in place and it has great governance through the Eastwoodhill Trust Act to maintain, improve and educate.”

There is a master plan that Martin follows.

“It's a very clear handbook on what we need to do.”

They love living in Gisborne and enjoy how nice and easy life is here.

“Gisborne is a great place.”