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One of Birmingham’s leading tree communities is launching its first certificated training course in February to help train up nearly 70 tree wardens to care for the city’s trees.

Birmingham Tree People is the charity for tree wardens in the city. It aims to have a tree warden in every one of the city’s 69 wards to help plant, protect and promote trees and the urban forest. It has been running informal training for its volunteer wardens for five years and will now offer professional qualifications for anyone who loves trees and wants to know more about them.

The Level 2 course in Arboriculture is taught by two of Birmingham’s leading arboriculturalists and leads to an Ofqual-regulated qualification awarded by Skills and Education Group Awards. Ian McDermott is a college lecturer and an instructor with Lantra, the awarding body for land-based industries, and Simon Needle is an arboriculturalist for Birmingham City Council.

Ian McDermott, course tutor, says: “Lockdown gave many people the chance to get out into nature – and some were a bit baffled when they got there. Our main audience for this training is likely to be those people with a passion for trees, and will cover different aspects of trees from how they stand up to why they fall down!”

The course is online and will cover tree biology, woodland management, supply, planting and aftercare of trees, basics of tree surgery and tree inspections. It will be taught at weekends and evenings, and will last 30 months. The application deadline is 28 February 2021 with the first course starting in April.

“We're really looking forward to running this course,” says Tonia Clark, Chair of Birmingham Tree People. “Ian and co-tutor, Simon Needle, are very experienced arboriculturalists and are great educators. We hope that learners will enjoy the course and that some will go on to become volunteer tree wardens or even consider a career in arboriculture.”
Birmingham has 1,000,000 trees already but there are plans to increase this number by at least 150,000 and the tree wardens are part of this effort. Birmingham Tree People runs monthly information sessions about trees to tree wardens and is surveying all newly planted street trees in the city.

To apply or read more details about the course, click here.