Thursday, October 2, 2008

ISA HK/China --- China Tree News (ISA in 2008 IPM)


*** Our weekly Station Mail is for the information of Station Members only, but Station Mail has given up copyright & can be freely circulated. For administrative reasons, comments from outsiders are usually not entertained & may be circulated within our system locally & overseas. Please note Station Mail is sometimes given in Blog at http://isahkchina.blogspot.com/ , although images are usually not attached due to size. ***

Dear Station Members,

Further to our initial efforts to promote ISA in China in the past few months, China has responded favourably in return, & this time on a national scale. The name of ISA is now officially recorded into the Chinese Greenery System for the first time & can be approached by millions of Tree Lovers in China through their own system.

Attached is a newspaper cutting of the China Gardening News (CGN) which is a national newspaper on greenery in China. CGN is the equivalent of Wall Street Journal for greenery in China & is an official "Party Newspaper" circulated to all Landscape Bureaus from Central Govt to Provincial, City & Town levels for their millions of greenery staff to read two times a week. CGN is also read by the public who have interest in greenery in China & this figure would be again astronomical. CGN is the most influential newspaper in China without doubt on greenery & finding a place there today for publicity is like finding water in desert. ISA HK/China somehow did it through IPM participation for free.

The direct translation of the heading in the report would be that "IPM Show has paved the way for ISA to enter China". It may not be what some of our international readers would like to acknowledge but China does not know ISA well enough to throw an open arm to invite us. The social sentiment in China towards anything foreign is still full of scepticism due to a hundred years of invasion history, & this will be the ice that ISA HK/China will work hard to break. We believe that ISA will be good for China, & we want our brothers & sisters to apprehend that.

The author of the article also made comparison in 'judging' a tree with the oriental & western angle. It then went on to the intention of ISA HK/China wanting to spread the knowledge of modern arboriculture into China for the benefit of trees there. Description such as Arborists are Tree Doctors & Tree Detectives were mentioned. The article ended by claiming how popular the IPM Show would be to bring about the hundreds of participants from across the countries.

With some calculated efforts, ISA is now officially registered in the China Greenery System in their database. This may raise some eyebrows in this Land of Old Dragons for them to pay attention to an 84 year old Tree Care Organization of the Western World which has constant research & education on Arboriculture & Urban Forestry, not as a hobby but as a municipal necessity. A lot of such information is also given for free for the benefits of mankind & a better living in the world. If this may all sound too good to be true for our brothers & sisters who think everything has to come with a price tag, it will then become our mission to confirm it to them, one tree at a time.

best regards,

Sammy Au
Station Manager

"Trees are good for the community. Trees need care like human beings. Arborists are the Tree Care Professionals."

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