An Ancient and Present Problem of Death or Permanent Disability for Tree Workers.
Whether, you are talking about landscape Palm trees or Commercial Farming of Date, Coconut or Palm Oil trees, it is an ancient and dangerous business. The oldest known records for the care and farming of Palm trees as a food source date back some 6,000 years of recorded history and reveals their ancient use in landscaping as well. Some of these ancient records point to the safety issues and give advice on the best climbing practices of the times.
In today’s records, the annual number of deaths exceed 5,000 or more lives lost each year Globally and thousands more of permanently and seriously injured skilled workers. The exact numbers cannot be determined because in many countries, including the USA, skilled but undocumented workers are hired to perform the maintenance and farming services in both of the aforementioned sectors of this global industry. These numbers include many children as young as 10 years old due to the lack of child labor protection laws in many countries. Death and/or permanent disability of skilled labor from on the job falls has been a reality for far too many millenniums.