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TOWARDS REASONABLE TREE RISK DECISION-MAKING?

Summary While we are all continuously exposed to risks the legal expectation is that risks need not be removed but rather should be reasonably controlled. For tree risk management to be defendable, it is important to be able to review how risk decisions are made (how risks are identified, appraised and controlled). Though these activities form the basis of risk management, in the event of an accident, any relevant records may be used to establish whether duty of care has been met. Defendable risk regulation draws on industry guidelines and is specifically based on the presumption that the time, money and effort expended in meeting risk reduction should not be grossly disproportionate to the improvement in safety obtained. When risks are of such a low order that they are regarded as insignificant they are considered ‘broadly acceptable’. A reasonable framework for risk decision-making would probably regard intervention to reduce broadly acceptable risks as unwarranted. Average annual tree-related deaths from structural failure in the UK are so few that, arguably, any expenditure targeted to avoid such risks might be considered unnecessary, given the limited benefit in risk reduction likely to be achieved. Yet, when harm arises from tree failure, those responsible for trees carry the weight of potential investigation by the police and the Health and Safety Executive, not to mention from civil litigation. When a tree-related death occurs a disproportionately high level of media interest tends to follow and sometimes this is also accompanied by a landmark legal case. While such circumstances are in some respects understandable (as rarity influences public interest), this can have an unreasonable influence on expectations of routine tree inspection standards, and expenditure on management, and, moreover, result in undesirable implications for the nation's mature tree stock (loss of habitat, amenity, wilderness, carbon sink, etc.). To counter such defensive behaviour, an important role exists for the arboricultural industry—to work with other stakeholders to influence more rational outcomes. Such an initiative would make possible a more confident, defendable, professional stance for the benefit of sensible risk management policies and would contribute more widely to the long term sustainability of the nation's trees and the ecosystem.