Maggy and Karl Buhler of Pongakawa in Bay of Plenty are quietly humble about their efforts over the past 40 years to plant more of the country in native bush.
But the view from their homestead high above their 100ha dairy farm nicely frames the work that has accounted for about half that period.
A hundred metres below, a small, clear lake is framed by native trees and flaxes while a well-established riparian strip protecting 2km of stream through the farm’s valley is a thick green python of vegetation.
The fit, Swiss-born national trained as a veterinarian and that has been a profession he has used to see-saw with farming over the past few decades.
When pressed he admits he is probably a farmer first, vet second but has found the profession invaluable to balancing the ups and downs of milksolids payouts.
But it has also been his and Maggy’s decision to keep their dairying enterprises small that has helped him achieve that and both remain staunch advocates for smaller-scale dairying and the benefits it can bring.
“I remember standing up at a farmers’ conference in the late 80s as an open advocate for small dairy farms. At that time we were farming 35ha and I had calculated that for the hours worked it was paying about $50 an hour, good money back then and still good today.”
Moving to where they are today they run 250 cows on the farm’s 85 effective hectares and after paying it off almost 12 years ago resisted the temptation to go bigger.
Their focus has been on getting more per cow rather than more cows with a 400kg milksolids per cow target within their reach.
Their gentle approach to the land extends to the livestock and Karl’s desire to find an alternative to bobby calves has the couple using Wagyu semen to give unwanted calves a better outcome.
“And, of course, an important factor in the sustainability of our farming operation is the role of excellent staff over the years.”
The property also reflects their mutual love of the bush with its many plantings.
The riparian strip protecting the farm’s stream went in almost 20 years ago, well ahead of any regulatory demands in place today.
“We also fenced and planted a wetland on the farm that was little more than a damp, bare patch when we arrived.”
But today their restoration work extends beyond their picturesque property to two other ongoing projects they have been instrumental in creating.
One is a wetland at nearby Pongakawa School where their now grown daughters attended and where Maggy worked for 17 years.
In 2013 a piece of council land next to the school presented itself for restoration, with Maggy and Karl taking the lead.
“It is quite an incentive. When you put a fence around a site you are really compelled to do something within that fence. What struck us was once we decided to go ahead how much support there was in the community for it to succeed.”
Within days the project got help from an earthworks company to remove rubbish from an old dump uncovered, with materials and supplies coming from both the Bay of Plenty Regional Council and Western Bay of Plenty District Council.
Plenty of native plants and careful excavation mean the school now sports a living wetland system that students step out of the classroom to study, doing projects on pond life and vegetation.
It has created something of a signature experience for the school’s pupils with lessons sticking with students well after they leave.
“I had a teenage girl here helping us and she pointed out a native plant naming it very confidently and told me how she remembered it from her Pongakawa days.”
Meantime, to the southwest, the couple are also involved with the Rotoehu Ecological Trust, aiming to bring back the music of the kokako’s call across a 750ha area in the Rotoehu Forest conservation area.
The trust manages the land in partnership with the Conservation Department. It is one of five category one sites in NZ. It is home to 150 North Island kokako.
Only 14 remnant populations of the bird remain in the North Island.
Other native birds in the reserve include whiteheads, fantails, cuckoos, riflemen, shining cuckoos and kaka.
As one of nine children coming to NZ from Switzerland with his parents in 1956 Karl recounts how his parents thought they had come to a heaven where cows did not have to hang on the sides of mountains to graze.
“We left Switzerland at a time when farmers were very much facing tough times.
“Dad was 50, right at the upper end of settlement age here, but he managed to buy a small town supply farm in Taranaki and farmed it into his 70s. It was a very low-cost, sustainable farm and it’s interesting how the wheel is turning back to that now.”
Taking a gentle approach to dairying and combining it with a love of the bush Karl admits he is happiest planting out rough sidlings and gullies with natives.
“When I am doing it, it does not seem like work. It’s really a therapeutic exercise doing it.
“I think if your farm looks like a park, you are happier, your cows are happier too.”
