Organisers and attendees did trailer-backing at the Women and Trees camp at Eastwoodhill Arboretum over the weekend. Photo / Leonie Sheehan
Organisers and attendees did trailer-backing at the Women and Trees camp at Eastwoodhill Arboretum over the weekend. Photo / Leonie Sheehan
The national arboretum was the venue for a camp that drew participants from across the country to build the network of women in arboriculture.
At the second annual Women and Trees NZ camp at Eastwoodhill Arboretum in Gisborne, 32 women took part in activities like trailer backing, chainsaw skills, riggingand tree climbing.
Organisers hope to bridge the gender gap for arborists – only 3% were women as of the 2018 New Zealand Census.
Woman and Trees NZ is a collective created for women working in all types of arboriculture.
Co-founders Ruby McNab and Kelly Black were happy with how the second annual event went.
The group started when Black, having been involved with arboriculture for around 20 years, was inspired by an event she saw in the United States for women in agriculture.
“I came back and got really inspired to see how we could create, curate something like that in the Southern Hemisphere because I didn’t know of any.
“I tagged up with Ruby and we decided to see if we could get things together to create our own version of that.”
McNab is a contracting arborist and competitive tree-climber.
“There’s quite a buzz ... we’ve got people from Invercargill, Gisborne, Christchurch, Auckland,” McNab said of the Eastwoodhill event.
“By holding these events, we can affect the culture in such a positive and direct way and have a very good understanding of the current issues for women in the industry, as this [those attending the camp] is the majority of women in the industry.”
Woman and Trees NZ is a collective created for women working in all types of arboriculture. Only 3% of arborists in New Zealand were women as recently as the 2018 Census. Photo / Lucy Hands
With only 3% of arborists in the industry being women, Black and McNab believe events like this will help bridge that gap.
“We’re not really taught to take the comparison away. All you want to do is be as good as the guys and not think about your own journey really,” McNab said.
“People will butt in and they’ll be like, ‘this is how you do this’, and you won’t trust your own judgment.”
Black agreed, highlighting the need to show women how to work in the trade according to their own strengths.
“I learned very early on that I could do certain things, similar work, same sort of heaviness and strength required, but I just had to do it slightly differently.
“There was no one to sort of model it, so you have to just [go by] trial and error.”
Black said closing the gap was “one of the seeds” when starting Women and Trees NZ.
“Helping women as a minority, but the industry as a whole. Having a more balanced, diverse industry is so much healthier for many, many reasons.”
Black said it was about “having a quiet power and believing and backing yourself”.
Phillipa Clarke, a contracting arborist from Dunedin, said she felt that with how arboriculture was developing, there was a great opportunity for women to get involved.
“There’s a very obvious gap that I think needs to be filled. It feels like I’m bringing a fresh perspective,” Clarke said.
“I feel like I’ve stepped in at a time where there’s so much energy to improve the industry and make space for women, make space for things like pregnancy, menopause and menstrual cycles, which are really, really challenging, and also make space for doing things in a way that preserves the body.”
Many other women at the event talked about how they had been so captivated by the trade’s lifestyle that they had left their previous careers.
Chelsea Robertson, project team leader for Auckland company Pro Climb, made the move from early childhood teaching to the arborist trade 11 years ago.
“Each day is different. You come across different people, different trees, different scenarios. Climbing requires your brain to work in three dimensions.”
Though the trade was still male-dominated, Robertson said she had noticed an increase in women in the industry.
“It almost feels like there hasn’t been too much of a change from the male point of view, but there are more women and they’re more visible,” she said.
“At one point at Pro Climb in Auckland ... we had five women and I know that they felt a tremendous sense of pride being able to go out there together as a crew.”
