Wānaka man’s tourism knowledge helps improve local environment and educate visitors

Tim Barke has put his tourism knowledge to good use, helping tell the stories of Wānaka locals to visitors and working on improving the environment.

Losing his tourism job to the Covid-19 pandemic inspired Wānaka man Tim Barke to use his knowledge of the industry to help improve the environment, tell locals’ stories and educate visitors on what makes the town tick, Alison Smith writes.

When Tim Barke bought his Wānaka property just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, he planned to enjoy the rural lifestyle and commute to Queenstown for his corporate job.

Heading up Totally Tourism, the umbrella company for 12 aviation, adventure tourism and cruise boat enterprises, the pandemic meant Barke soon found himself out of that job and working shoulder to shoulder with the Jobs For Nature workforce.

“We clambered around the mountains and cut pine trees down,” he said.

“It was amazing - brutally cold - our coldest days were minus 8 degrees.”

Barke said he got to work with his son, who as a mountain bike track builder, was also out of a job.

“It was an experience I would never have got to have, spending four months around the mountain with my son.

“Everybody on the team was from different backgrounds – ex-CEOs, people who washed dishes – all earning the same. It was an amazing experience.”

The experience led Barke to the environmental protection organisation, Wai Wānaka, which aims to improve waterway health in the catchment rurally.

Wai Wānaka achieves this by engaging with 84 per cent of the Upper Clutha’s larger farms and involving more than 60 properties larger than 20ha, such as Barke’s.

Once borders were reopened a role came up with Lake Wānaka Tourism.

Barke saw this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform the local industry, collaborating with Wai Wānaka to put his tourism knowledge into environmental action.

“One of the reasons we bought our property is that we’re really interested in soil regeneration and regenerative farming practices, and trying stuff out to see what makes a difference,” he said.

“We’re small enough to be able to try stuff without it costing too much, but big enough to try it in different sections.”

Tim Barke's interest in soil regeneration and regenerative farming practices was one reason he bought his property.

The Wai Wānaka team helped with soil analysis and guidance on tools, such as visual soil assessments, and rabbit and wilding pine control.

Wai Wānaka also connected Barke to his neighbours in the sub-catchment of Poplar Beach.

The organisation has helped establish six of the seven catchment groups and four small landholder groups operating in the Central Lakes District.

These groups determine their priorities for each catchment, receiving a pool of funding to help with group facilitation. They also gain access to experts, tools and resources.

The science behind how the groups operate is based on a three-year research project involving more than 75 farm businesses around New Zealand, funded by Our Land and Water.

Wai Wānaka’s actions are based on the Community Catchment Plan.

Barke believed Wai Wānaka made it easier for locals to meet and work with their neighbours and provided invaluable outcomes with a science-based plan.

“As communities, we’re a lot more mobile than we used to be, so people move house, towns and regions more than in the old days, so those networks are harder to build up and keep,” he said.

“For me personally, this has been a really beneficial opportunity to get to know my neighbours. We were new to Wānaka, and it shortcuts the process.

“By having those experts, it gives you a lot more confidence than just catching up with neighbours and spitballing ideas.

Tim Barke wants visitors to Wānaka to have a better idea of how to fit into the community.

“You can fast-track things easier when you have scientific data behind the decisions you are making.”

He said getting people together, and understanding what worked and what didn’t, had been an interesting process.

“Overall, we’re all trying to achieve the same thing - to be custodians of the land and help the health of the land and the ecosystems within the land.

“Some of those in our catchment group’s sole income is produced from the land but they can only do that if the land is healthy.”

Barke said there were “huge benefits” to the groups if they could achieve cost-effective processes that helped regenerate the soil and ecosystems.

Barke’s lifetime career is in tourism, beginning in the late 1980s.

Right from the start he could see the opportunities that tourism presented - but also the potential impacts on the natural resources that it relied on - something that travellers were also starting to realise.

Barke said it was partly about the destination planning and how a region operated.

Tim Barke is keen for visitors to know what locals in Wānaka do as part of their ideal lifestyle and how they look after their place.

“Our job used to be to sell as much tourism product overseas as we could - it was literally bums on seats.

“Through the brand repositioning and destination management process that we spent two years doing, we found out that the community was rapidly feeling pressured by tourism and feeling like they were being pushed out, with tourism taking precedence over locals.”

Barke and his team rebuilt www.wanaka.co.nz to tell stories about who Wānaka’s locals are, what they do as part of their ideal lifestyle and how the locals look after their place.

“Then we offer an invitation to the people that resonates with.”

He said that by doing this, visitors had a better idea of how to fit into the community.

“We’re trying to create opportunities for visitors to get involved with and get a better understanding of how we look after the place and their role in that.

“It’s attracting the people who are going to be the best fit.

“It’s [also] encouraging tourism products that have a regenerative focus, like having people going four-wheel driving on high country stations to check pests, and learning why that’s being done, or approaching the selling as a storytelling process rather than marketing.”

Working with Wai Wānaka made it easier for Tim Barke to connect with his neighbours.

The outcome is twofold.

“The people wanting to come here have a much better understanding of where they’re coming to and who they’re coming to.

“Therefore, they’ve got a better understanding of what they can expect but also what’s expected of them when they come.”

Collaborating with Wai Wānaka’s team, the tourism offering is a genuine outcome for the good of the catchment.

Back on his land, Barke was keen to progress, alongside his neighbours, the reforestation of a barren hill face that had only weeds and rabbits on it.

“If we can get a native ecosystem going, we can connect Wānaka with Luggate through a natural corridor and potentially give people access to explore it.

“That in itself would have an impact on the weather – having a decent-sized forest can affect how much precipitation it gets.”