Last month when Queenstown councillors voted, eventually, to remove 17 established trees from a now-vacant Stanley St site, to create a 73-space temporary CBD carpark, councillor Matt Wong — who’s also on the Queenstown Business Chamber of Commerce board — threw down the gauntlet to Chamber boss Sharon Fifield.
During her address to councillors during the public forum, Fifield said the business community would also follow council’s own tree policy, replacing each tree removed with two.
Wong asked them to up the ante, and fund the replacement of 170.
Today the Chamber is launching a tree registry fundraiser, via Trees That Count, aiming to raise $1700 — enough to meet Wong’s challenge, while hoping they might exceed it.
The Chamber itself has already funded the replacement of the 17 trees to be removed.
Fifield, noting anyone can contribute, says the money raised will be split equally by Trees That Count between four Whakatipu projects — the Arrowtown Choppers, Whakatipu Reforestation Trust, community planting (Arthurs Point’s Morningstar Reserve) and in Glenorchy.
"We think that the Queenstown business community will totally get behind this," Fifield says.
"It is hard to see 17 trees go ... but Queenstown businesses have been talking about needing carparks for years now, and it’s really good that QLDC have recognised the need, not just to replace the carparks we lost in the street upgrades, but also to cater for how fast our district is growing."
Fifield says the registry will stay open, via tinyurl.com/ywysa6hd, till November 29.
