ISA made arborist certification on an international level a reality in early 1992 and to date, over fourteen thousand arborists worldwide have become certified. Arborists now have an educationally challenging program designed to upgrade the knowledge and proficiency levels in the profession. Certification provides a vehicle to convey an arborist's competence and commitment to professionalism to the consumer.

ISAAC has set as one of its goals the introduction of the ISA Arborist Certification program in Australia. This brief article explains the What/How/When of the Aussie ISA Arborist Certification program.

The introduction of the ISA certification program in Australia was trialed at the Canberra Conference in 2000. This trial highlighted the complexity of the task, and proved that it was not to be taken as a "this is a good idea - let's do it" task.

The ISA certification program is a professional section of the ISA, coordinating the certification administration of some 14,000 arborists, employing three full-time staff and directed by a certification board. Importantly, it takes its responsibilities extremely seriously. Statistical analysis is undertaken of the exam results and the questions are reviewed based on this analysis. The entire question bank of thousands of questions is reviewed several times a year.

The question bank is closely guarded, and Australia was very lucky last time that the ISA allowed us to have the question bank without ensuring its security. This time the intention is to have a much more formal arrangement in place with the administrators. Australia will have its own "certification committee", which will take responsibility for administering the program in Australia and reviewing the question bank.

Subject to the scheme having sufficient interest in Australia it is proposed to slowly develop an Australian focused exam question base. However, it should be noted the current exam is a huge development that has taken many years to develop; exams results are continuously statistically analysed, new questions added and old questions removed. Therefore, a pure Australian only certification exam will be unlikely and equally, one could ask what makes Australian arboriculture so different - not much really (particularly considering the US exam covers Mexico, Canada, USA including Hawaii and Alaska). The vast majority of the basis of modern arboriculture is based on northern hemisphere texts and data. Importantly, questions that have are incorrect from a southern hemisphere perspective will be changed (e.g. south to north).

The next exam is at the ISAAC National Conference in Adelaide. Only twenty applicants will be accepted so early booking will be essential. If greater interest is shown, additional exams will be organised as required. A certification application containing far more detail will be available in June from the ISAAC Website or through ISAAC Administration on (08) 8440 2478. Enquiries can be directed to Martin Norris (cert@isaac.org.au).