NZSKI has published a video showing the Remarkables skifield manager vacuuming seeds from its slopes - as the firm waits for a decision on its replacement chairlift.
Ross Lawrence uses a dust buster to collect epilobium seeds in the clip uploaded to the Remarkables social media accounts, in a bid to show the firm's environmental credentials.
It wants Department of Conservation approval to replace the Sugar Basin chairlift and develop new ski trails at the Queenstown skifield, but it will need to move sensitive vegetation.
Last week, NZSki chief executive Paul Anderson said it had ''tentative approval'' from Doc as the 75-page ''decision support document'' looked favourable.
That surprised Forest and Bird's Otago-Southland regional manager Sue Maturin, who spoke at the hearing on the replacement lift.
She said NZSki had not presented a case to enable the minister to be satisfied new trails were required or the values of the Rastus Burn Recreation Reserve would be protected.
The application, she said, covers ''some of the best remaining relatively undeveloped alpine grasslands left within the skifield''.
''The new ski trails will clear sensitive alpine ecosystems and require huge amounts of earth to be moved which will create unsightly scars which cannot be patched up. Forest and Bird is not opposed to the installation of the new lift provided the threatened species and outstanding landscape values could be protected and some form of compensation is paid to compensate for the adverse effects on public conservation land, but we do not believe the new trails are consistent with the relevant planning documents.''
Doc regional manager Otago Southland Aaron Fleming said he ''received the decision support document on Thursday and am currently in the process of reviewing this and making internal inquiries... a decision will be made once I am satisfied with the responses to all internal questions.''
In the video, Mr Lawrence describes how using the dustbuster ''proved the best way to collect seed, which we then mix with other seeds and hand propagate back into open terrain if we haven't got anything else for it
... Putting [epilobium seeds] back into the landscape it's one of the first things that gets other plants growing in around about it, gathers dust, gathers dirt, and all of a sudden you've got regeneration of the landscape. And that's what we're all about here at The Remarkables.''
The blurb for the video says the company is ''very conscious of our environment''.
