Catherine Nuttgens: In the Spotlight
By Catherine Nuttgens
2020-03-23
Catherine Nuttgens is one of the Twelve Faces of Arboriculture in the series Women in Arboriculture (WIA) which is being promoted by the Arboricultural Association. She featured in February, sharing a little of her journey within the sector, where she is now the Community Forestry Manager at Sheffield City Council. As I read the feature, which focused on her journey from a female perspective, and was succinct, I felt that there was more to explore. The title of Community Forestry Manager itself is not one routinely found in local authorities. Catherine agreed to share more.
Catherine’s journey began 20 years ago, when graduating with a degree in Aquatic Biology from the University of Hull. After an expedition to the rainforests and coral reefs of Belize, she began volunteering for BTCV, leading the site management and school groups at Skelton Grange Environment Centre in Leeds. This was to be a very positive experience and helped to lay the groundwork for a career in people and trees. The first role she took up after volunteering was with the Royal Forestry Society, where she got her first understanding of the workings of commercial forestry and developed the very first elements in what has now become the RFS Teaching Trees Project.
Catherine’s passion for woodlands and the great outdoors took her to Sheffield, where she led on many lottery-funded woodland and heritage projects as part of the Trees and Woodlands team at Sheffield City Council. Over eight years she led tree-based community and education projects on woodland heritage themes, which included a water-powered grinding mill (Shepherd Wheel) and iron age metal working (Wincobank Hillfort). These projects allowed Catherine to explore her fascination in how landscape shapes people and people shape the landscape. (For example the life of George Yardley, a charcoal burner who worked the coppice in Ecclesall Wood in the 18th Century, who burned to death in his hut in 1786, falling asleep (possibly after a few pints) whilst watching the charcoal stack. At the time the landlord of the local pub Rising Sun and some of George’s mates paid for his memorial stone, which was erected in the woods where his hut stood. Both the memorial and the pub are still there.)
She is from an extended family of crafts people and has an affinity for those that work with wood, metal, leather and clay, so she enthusiastically included aspects of these in a lot of the projects. Ten of thousands of Sheffield children and adults came outside and smelted iron, carved archery bows, lit and cooked on fires, made charcoal, worked on the forge, joined in firey night time lantern processions, assisted in horse logging and many many other things. She says it was an exceedingly large amount of fun.
As lottery funding began to dwindle, the Tree Team Manager, recognising her skills, invited her to pursue an opportunity in Arboriculture. She duly completed her Professional Tree Inspector course and became a Tree officer. The role was not full time, and her other duties were as a Project Officer in the Planning Department, implementing community infrastructure projects. This included dealing with tenders and supervising work, for a range of projects including planning a park and constructing a skating park. Being a competent Local Authority Tree Officer requires a broad base of knowledge and Catherine then took the Level Four Diploma in Arboriculture, at the Tree Life consultancy taught by Andy Summerley. She reflects that it was a lot of work but it gave her an essential grounding in all the diverse aspects of Arboriculture, such as the law, Trees in relation to buildings, contract management etc.
She also from working with the rest of the tree team, who well qualified and several of whom have four decades or more of experience. She found that being a tree officer was calmer than her previous roles, and she enjoyed the applied science of tree risk management. She still got the opportunity to engage with groups occasionally, highlighting the importance of a 400 year old mulberry in a children’s respite home, and running Sheffield Tree Fayre, with a pro tree climbing competition run by local contractors Sheffield Tree Care.
Community Forestry was set up over 15 years ago to engage the public in Arboriculture and in the last 10 years have quietly planted a third of a million trees in the city. In November 2019 the Community Forestry Manager stood down which presented an opportunity. Five years as a Tree Officer had given Catherine a good working knowledge of Arboriculture, and the role would combine the Arboriculture with people, and Catherine was eager to apply.
In November 2019, she started in the new role, and a baptism of fire. When 157 trees arrived from Tillhill (the smallest 45l and quite a few of them 100l and 200l pots), two weeks into the role, a large proportion of them had no place to go, or had been allocated to places where conditions have changed. A new SUDs scheme marked for many heavy standards had become water logged since the site visit in the summer, and definitely not appropriate for the species and size of trees chosen for the site.
She shares of this time:
"work before Christmas was hard. I was the only member of staff in Community Forestry, and there were the commemorative heavy standard plantings to coordinate for bereaved families, also 10000 whips to order and find sites for, site maps and planting lists for contractors and all the other normal things needed when starting a new job.
However, after Christmas has felt like things are getting on track. I now have a ranger to help me, which I am extremely grateful for. The commemorative heavy standards are all planted with help from the rest of the Tree Team. I have contracted out the planting of many of the heavy and extra heavy standards now that I have sorted out where they are going. I’ve planned much of the whip planting with a local group of volunteers ‘Kids Plant Trees’ who have a great social media presence, and we have events around the city running up to the end of March.
We attracted 200 volunteers to the first two planting weekends of the year, and we got 2000 whips in the ground. In the last month, I led 300 school children to plant over 1000 trees in various sites in the city. In late February when planting in the endless wet of this year, a mud coated 8 year exclaimed, “This is the best day of my life!” It might be that the alder whip planted in a water-filled hole in heavy clay may not make it, but that boy will fondly remember the day he planted those trees. This is how the arbs of the future are created, and I consider that as part of my job done.
There is also lot more to do. I’m writing funding bids for extra staff, and meeting with stakeholders like the Woodland Trust, Forest Research, the Wildlife Trust and many other organisations to develop a coordinated approach to tree planting in the coming years, since planting is high on the public agenda nationally and even more so in Sheffield with the recent Street Tree Issues . I want to develop a Tree Planting Strategy for Sheffield’s public spaces, identifying areas to plant by landscape type and appropriate species, but also involve local residents in decision-making. My time as a tree officer has given me ample experience of the results of trees planted in the wrong place. I can also use the knowledge I have already through my Level Four Diploma in Arboriculture (although I definitely have more to learn), to plant trees that benefit people, wildlife and the climate, and have some visual landscape appeal.
It is clear that both there is much to do and Catherine has the passion and energy to achieve much. Like me, her degree was not in arboriculture. Does further studying appeal? We are talking on the phone, but I can sense Catherine’s eyes rolling: and when would I fit that in? A Masters’ degree would be great, but life is too busy. Chartership appeals and she is keen to learn, but for now, the job is full-on!"
Away from work, Catherine sings and is also an amateur silversmith, making jewellery and working with metal. For her, there is something very relaxing about working on something small and intricate that requires sharp focus, after days of dealing with so many things at once. Catherine has also enjoyed working on the forge as a blacksmith and comments, as an aside that she made all the handles for her kitchen units. I sense that she is in a job she loves, applying energy and direction, and with her at the helm, this element of Sheffield’s Urban forest is in good hands.
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