September 13, 2026

When EcoZip Adventures opened in Kaikōura, our founders had a fairly simple ambition: build a successful tourism business that could also do some good for the place in which it operated.

They imagined native planting, habitat restoration and practical conservation, funded by people coming to enjoy one of Kaikōura’s great adventure experiences.

What they probably didn’t imagine was Andi, Tim and Jayden.

Since 2024, these three members of the EcoZip Kaikōura team have taken the idea of creating our own native plant nursery and run with it. What began with a handful of seeds and seedlings, gathered by hand from native trees growing on the farm where EcoZip operates, has become a nursery containing more than 4,000 native trees and plants. By 2027, we expect that number to exceed 10,000.

It is a remarkable achievement, particularly because this isn’t a commercial nursery staffed by professional horticulturalists. It has been built alongside the day-to-day business of running EcoZip Kaikōura.

Andi, Tim and Jayden have collected seed, propagated plants, potted seedlings, watered them, protected them and learnt, sometimes by trial and error, what works. They’ve taken something that began as an idea around a table and turned it into a serious, and growing, conservation resource for Kaikōura.

In truth, they’ve exceeded our founders’ wildest expectations.

From our nursery into the Kaikōura community

The really satisfying bit is that these trees aren’t destined simply to make EcoZip look greener. The first major tranche has already left the nursery and  been gifted to Pōhowera Park at South Bay, where Kaikōura District Council and the local community are transforming the former South Bay forest into a substantial coastal reserve.

Pōhowera Park covers around 70 hectares, including three kilometres of coastline. Its development includes walking and cycling trails, recreation areas and extensive native revegetation intended to improve biodiversity and habitat for wildlife.

EcoZip-grown kānuka and akeake were among the plants used during the park’s first community planting. Importantly, the plants were locally sourced and suited to Kaikōura’s coastal environment. For us, that matters enormously.

What commercial conservation actually looks like

People searching for things to do in Kaikōura will quite rightly find whales, dolphins, mountains, coastline and adventure experiences. We think there is another part of the Kaikōura tourism story worth telling.

Tourism can help protect the places people have travelled to see.

Every guest who joins an EcoZip Kaikōura experience is supporting a business that puts money, people and resources back into conservation. Our native nursery is a particularly visible example, but it reflects a principle that has been part of EcoZip from the beginning: commercial success and environmental responsibility should support each other. We sometimes call it commercial conservation.

It isn’t about making grand claims. It is about doing practical things. Collecting seeds. Growing trees. Controlling pests. Restoring habitat. Helping community projects. Then doing it again next year, on a bigger scale.

And behind those things are people.

So while we’re enormously proud of our Kaikōura native nursery, we’re prouder still of Andi, Tim and Jayden.  The EcoZip business’s founders may have supplied the idea, but these three made it real.