ArbPro Tree Specialists

ArbPro has been working out of Coffs Harbour on the NSW North Coast since 2007. It was started by owner and director Kayne Smith, an AQF5 qualified arborist who also holds International Society of Arboriculture certification, which has to be renewed every five years, and a Certificate IV as a Qualified Trainer and Assessor. That last one matters more than it sounds: it means he trains and mentors his own crew on safety rather than outsourcing it. The team is made up of AQF3 and AQF5 arborists.

Day to day the work is tree removal, tree pruning and maintenance, stump grinding, wood chipping and land clearing. What sets the operation apart is what it owns. ArbPro runs 21 inch capacity chippers in both four wheel drive and two wheel drive, a range of stump grinders including a small machine that fits through a 900mm gateway, two crane trucks (one a Volvo FL250 with a Hiab Jonsered lift), a Bobcat T90 and a Terex PT-100G skid steer with a pile of attachments, plus an all terrain EWP with a 23 metre working height that is also available for hire.

Beyond the cutting there is a solid consulting side. Arborist reports, tree risk assessments, tree protection plans, tree management plans and vegetation removal plans are all produced in house, along with pest and disease identification and treatment for trees that are struggling rather than dangerous. This is the paperwork side that development applications and council clearing approvals usually hinge on.

A few of the services are genuinely uncommon for a regional tree firm. Tree support systems using cabling and bracing can hold a valued tree together instead of removing it. Root barriers are supplied and installed to keep roots away from pipes and paving. There is tree planting, saw milling so a felled trunk can come back as timber rather than as chip, and the supply and installation of fauna nest boxes, which gives displaced possums and parrots somewhere to go when habitat has to come down.

The service area runs a long way up and down the coast, from Port Macquarie in the south through Coffs Harbour to the upper Clarence, taking in private, commercial and government clients. The office is open Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 5pm, and closed on public holidays, but the crew is available around the clock for emergency work when a tree comes down at an inconvenient hour.