My partner used to work for these folks, he'd say you were getting paid 9-13 cents to bend over. Folks making $200-350/day planting 2000-4000 trees each, with camps 60-100 people; summit runs multiple camps. It's quite the lifestyle, some planting camps are a bit of a wild place.
What a is the motivation? Purely money? Fast money to fund other activities (surfing, snowboarding)? Or do they really enjoy the culture/challenge ?
"Planting trees is one of the most physically demanding jobs in North America."
They have a fairly serious preconditioning program :
Watching the videos it looks like they only use a standard spade to break up the dirt and then slide the tree into place.
Is there no specialized tools that would allow that without bending over?
Where I planted, The ground was often rocky so it was tricky to close the holes properly after planting a tree. It's also very important not to bend the tree roots. It would be very difficult to accomplish that reliably without bending over. As far as specialized tools, generally from what I have seen the spade is sharpened and one half is usually ground completely off
It is also very bad for your back and the trees will be used for toilet paper... just sayin