Citizen Pruner Program
The City of Thunder Bay, in conjunction with the volunteer group Trees Thunder Bay, launched Canada's very first Citizen Pruner Program after a trial run in 2010.
The program is designed to help improve the health and quality of Thunder Bay's urban forest. It offers free tree pruning training to citizens from a local certified arborist, Vince Rutter, in exchange for a minimum time commitment.
Once trained, citizen pruners work under the supervision of the City's Parks Division to prune young City boulevard trees to correct defects and direct stronger growth to improve tree quality and longevity. The citizen pruners are subject to at least nine hours of intense training to give them the knowledge and skills they need to understand tree growth and development.
Volunteers can also use their new knowledge and skills on their private trees, helping in turn to improve the entire urban forest. This investment in the future quality of our public trees will result in huge cost savings to the City and taxpayers.
This structural training can fix many problems that can lead to costly pruning and repairs, or early tree failure and death. This program will be offered on an annual basis, with registration in December and training starting in February, in preperation for outdoor work in May.
For more information, see the 2012 Winter Key.
Generous grants provided by:
