A north Canterbury "clean green" programme has been given nearly $25,000 by a Japanese company that buys products from the area.
The money has gone to Greening Waipara and it is helping put native plants back into the area.
As the fastest growing wine region in New Zealand, grapevines are springing up everywhere in Waipara.
But there are more than grape vines here.
Greening Waipara is a six year project set up solely to do just that - put native plants back into the area.
“An idea of putting back the biodiversity, the native plants mainly that used to live in the Waipara valley that used to live here hundreds of years ago and the difference is we're putting back in the vineyards...in the working landscape,” says Steve Wratten, a Lincoln University researcher.
Today the project received an unlikely hand and a $24,000 donation from a Japanese firm.
The Four Leaf Company buys its blackcurrants from a Waipara grower and wanted to put some money back into the region and support the area's natural ecology.
Four Leaf uses Waipara chemical free blackcurrants and extracts to put in the health food products it manufactures.
Greening Waipara now operates in 42 vineyards and other businesses.
It has helped put in 20,000 native plants, reducing pests and more importantly, chemical sprays.
“I'm really pleased with the way it's going and I'd like to see it extended to all the Waipara growers and maybe even up to Marlborough and central Otago too,” Wratten says.