NATO has undertaken CAVAT training led by Chris Neilan and supported by Andy Tipping, Jake Tibbetts and Andy Lederer. We are pleased to provide general information on CAVAT on this page and we plan to keep it as up to date as possible. A number of tree officers have already attended and benefitted from the one day training workshop which provides a more intensive guide to the way CAVAT can work as an asset management tool in the local authority workplace.
CAVAT provides a method for managing trees as public assets rather than liabilities. It is designed not only to be a strategic tool and aid to decision-making in relation to the tree stock as a whole, but also to be applicable to individual cases, where the value of a single tree needs to be expressed in monetary terms.
Therefore there are two versions of the CAVAT method. The Full method is recommended for use in decisions concerning individual trees or groups, when precision is required and sufficient time is available for a full assessment. The Quick method is intended specifically as a strategic tool for management of the stock as a whole, as if it were a financial asset of the community.
The full list of CAVAT documents which can be downloaded are detailed below: