A push to attract more tourists to a picturesque wine and agricultural province in Western Australia's South West has exposed divisions between locals over the future of the region.
Ferguson Valley sits just 20 minutes drive from the busy regional hub of Bunbury, and is home to several beef farms and vineyards.
It also boasts the world's largest public congregation of garden gnomes at the quirky Gnomesville park.
However, it is also a region struggling to attract a solid tourist base, with many punters preferring to continue on to more well-known destinations like Margaret River and Dunsborough.
Dardanup Shire president Mick Bennett said the area had massive tourism potential, but its large blocks of land made it difficult for people to set up tourist-friendly businesses.
"We don't have a small enough area for say, even a simple thing like an ice-cream shop or a chocolate factory or something like that," he said.
"We need to start getting more things for people to do when they go into the valley.
"It's fantastic to have Gnomesville, but you need to be able to [have] a couple of other things to do on a visit."
Mr Bennett said the shire is now considering whether it should allow for many of the rural properties to be re-zoned for tourism in an attempt to encourage commercial development.
"At the moment, you need to spend a million dollars to start a tourism venture in the valley because the blocks are so large, therefore it prevents it from actually happening," he said.
"We need to get to a situation where you can allocate the correct amount of land for a tourism business and then go from there."
Not everybody is on board with the push for more visitors.
Roger Verbrugge, whose beef farm sits adjacent to the site of a proposed restaurant, claims increased development in the area is having an impact on the welfare of his animals.
"Ferguson has been a nice quiet location for the local residents for quite some time and then over recent years we've had a few restaurant type tourism establishments that have come in," he said.
If they're not careful and they push the farms out from this area and [subdivide], the place is going to lose its charm, which is the thing attracting everyone up here in the first place.
Beef farmer Roger Verbrugge
"Since then, we've had an increase in tourists coming up and interfering with our farming operations, taking photos from the fence.
"When a cow is calving, you don't want to have a group of spectators, it interferes with the calving process and causes distress for the cows and the calves.
"There's also a concern about people bringing pets out to a rural location and not controlling them. Cows in a paddock, they don't like to be disturbed."
Mr Verbrugge said his view was shared by many long-standing residents.
"For the general community, there's a noise issue but I believe the major issue for the locals is people coming out to the Ferguson Valley and not respecting the property of the neighbours and trespassing," he said.
"This has not been designated a tourist area, this is a rural area, there are restrictions on what you can do with the land and it appears to me that the Dardanup shire keeps bending the rules to suit themselves.
"If they're not careful and they push the farms out from this area and [subdivide], the place is going to lose its charm, which is the thing attracting everyone up here in the first place."
Valley 'must welcome new business to prosper'
Ferguson Valley resident of 35 years and winery owner, Quirinus Olsthoorn, argued the only way the region would prosper was by offering of an incentive for people to visit.
"It's amazing even the number of Bunbury people that don't even know we exist, and we're on their doorstep," he said.
"We need another thing besides Gnomesville, something that makes it us a bit more unique.
"People doing wood turning or glass blowing, those artisan type activities; we need an art gallery.
There's a significant number of people, particularly older people, that don't want to see any change, but then you'll find that in any community anywhere.
"We just don't have the marketing budget or the cohesion like Margaret River."
Mr Olsthroon said allowing landowners to re-zone their properties was a step in the right direction.
"What we badly need is a totally different approach by the WA Planning Commission who will not allow us to sub-divide anything," he said.
"You can't make money out of here unless you diversify and we need diversification."
Mr Olsthroon said the people who are against the proposed changes are a minority.
"Basically, farming has been more or less dead for the past 20 years," he said.
"There's a significant number of people, particularly older people, that don't want to see any change, but then you'll find that in any community anywhere.
"[The attitude is] 'I'm all right Jack, I've got my five or 10 acre block and I don't want any intrusion into my privacy', but that doesn't add anything to the community.
"One of the attractions of the Ferguson Valley is that there's still a lot of bush and a lot of trees, it has this rolling country side and it's beautiful.
"Nobody wants to see clearing, but we also want to give opportunity to people to be commercial and make a living."
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