The Smith family has combined their working farm with a holiday park and pest eradication programme, and are going all-out on conservation with a native wildlife breeding centre.
Weka Photo: (Flickr user Sid Mosdell CC BY 2.0)
Barbara Faulls (nee Smith), who built the park with husband Chris, says it's a mix that makes sense.
"It's just a natural fit for us - conservation is good for us and it's good for our business.
"What we see is that with our domestic and international tourists, they are not only interested in the beauty of the New Zealand landscape they want to know about the flora and the fauna.
"They want to know what New Zealand is doing in terms of endangered species and sustainability of those species."
The farm was originally a working cattle farm - and that is still part of the business - but they knew they had a beautiful area on their hands and began looking to turn it into a tourism venture. They now have four cabins, two separate units, motels, a cottage and space for caravans and motor homes, with more construction planned.
"Our landscape here is a farming landscape but it then runs down into the Marlborough Sounds.
"We don't have a beach on our farm ourselves but we are bordered by some magnificent hills, and in those hills we've got some regenerating native bush and you've also got some very old native bush that remained post the early settlers."
She says conservation has always been a part of the way they've looked at the operation.
"We knew right from the start that we had to be focused on something that would sit well in the land and something which would not harm or endanger the environment.
"Everything we've done was with some sort of environmental practice or background in the back of our minds."
The family has been looking at doing what they can to help with pest eradication - particularly possums.
"We've got an active trapping programme and we've got a gentleman locally who comes onto the farm and he sections off particular areas and he'll go through there and he'll do a cull of possums.
"From an early stage we've been focused on possums because obviously they are pretty nasty little critters.
"Whilst some people might think that they're lovely and fluffy, the damage that they do not only to the native bird population - with eggs and the little chicks - is horrendous. When you see what they've done to the native trees - taking off all the new shoots and so on - it can really wreck a forest pretty quickly."
She says they've also been looking at curbing rats, mice, weasels - and stoats, which she says are particularly tricky.
"I've tried the egg-in-the-trap thing, it doesn't seem to work.
"The best thing is … if you can find a bit of dead rabbit on the road and it's relatively fresh, if you can grab it and put a bit of that in the trap they seem to be hugely attracted to bits of dead rabbit."
She says more recent is the Koru Native Wildlife Centre breeding programme, in partnership with Brian and Ellen Plaisier.
"They've always been very predator free, sustainable future minded.
"They said 'how would it be if we set up a facility at your holiday park where we can breed the native kākāriki, the giant wētā and also the gecko.
"It gives our guests something else that they can do and it also enables us to have Brian and Ellen teaching our domestic and international guests about native wildlife - what things they can do to help, if they want to donate to the Predator Free New Zealand trust for instance, or if they want to purchase a trap.
"It also gives us an opportunity with local school children and local visitors who can come in here and do some sort of educational programme and perhaps then go back into their farm or their township or wherever and carry out a sort of programme like we're doing here."
She says their tourist industry body - Holiday Parks New Zealand - has connected with Predator Free New Zealand, and while the more recent changes are a bit of a step up, conservation is something the group supports.
"A lot of them are already involved and it's something that they naturally do anyway
"This has just ramped it up a wee bit and it means they can connect in with Predator Free New Zealand, they can get assistance
"Predator Free New Zealand have been very good at offering us educational material, traps at a discounted rate.
"It's an aspirational vision. It's an ongoing goal and it can only be good for our country as well as our industry.
"I think if you come from Berlin or you come from London or one of those huge cities, a lot of people just don't get a chance in those places to see nature close up.
"This is our parks enabling them to take an ownership, to take a pride in the country that they're travelling in and to be able to help in some way ... It gives you that feel good feeling when you go out."
