Lionel Buckett, owner of Wollemi Cabins, is calling for more ecotourism in the Hawkesbury

Ecotourism is tourism directed towards exotic, often threatened, natural environments, intended to support conservation efforts and observe wildlife.

Ecotourism efforts inspire environmentally-sustainable and culturally-responsible tourism, and one Hawkesbury lifer has been plugging away at boosting the local ecotourism industry for the past 20 years.

Lionel Buckett, a builder, owns 600 acres in Berambing, where he runs an ecotourism business called Wollemi Cabins that consists of numerous cabins he designed and built.

The property sits on part of Lieutenant Bowen's first land grant; much of the rest was sold off for orchards.

Mr Buckett's property has a stark and untouched feel about it; it includes a rainforest and a creek, and borders national park. Down in the gully sit the remains of a convict-built road that leads to a convict-built roadhouse.

Each of the cabins are designed with the environment in mind; all the accommodation seems to be part of the bush that surrounds it.

Mr Buckett said there is a "huge market" for what he's offering at Wollemi Cabins.

"Eco-tourism is a pretty important thing. Hawkesbury should be doing more of it," he told the Gazette.

Wollemi Cabins was hit by bushfire this summer. Following a Rural Fire Service backburn that got out of control, fire burnt up the gully and took with it much of the bush on Mr Buckett's property.

Word travelled on social media and city-dwellers - far from crossing the destination off their bucket-lists - travelled to Berambing to help the Wollemi Cabins team repair some of the damage.

Google even sent 75 of its own workers from its Sydney headquarters to help the clean-up effort, Mr Buckett said.

That's the thing about ecotourism: in a world where natural habitats are dwindling, more people - city folk included - are coming up with ways to help salvage what's left.

Two weekends ago, the Wollemi Cabins team held an open day so travellers could check-out the bushfire damage.

A massive 300 people turned up to walk through the cabins and view the bush, which has been busily pushing out new green and red leaves from blackened trunks.

The day offered native wildlife shows, Wollemi pine planting, a fire photo exhibition and a bushfire ecology tour.

"We're trying to create something to encourage people to come into the area for bushfire recovery, and get people looking at the cabins and we'll give them handouts for other businesses in the area," said Mr Buckett.

"We employ a lot of spin-off microbusinesses all about ecotourism."

This includes businesses that offer wildlife tours, glow-worm tours, in-house massages and mud baths, all working together to provide an inclusive ecotourism service for Wollemi Cabins customers.

When you visit Wollemi Cabins, you are given a hand-out with information about other local businesses you might visit, from Mount Tomah right down to Kurrajong Heights.

Mr Buckett said he wanted to generate economic activity back into areas that were affected by the recent bushfire, particularly around Bilpin.

"We want to get people looking at it to see it's not all burnt to a crisp," he said.

Mr Buckett grew up in Kurrajong and moved to Bilpin when he was 17. He currently lives at Mountain Lagoon.

"My family came from up here from the early 1920s," he said.

He was named a Master Builder with the Master Builders Association in 1999 - the highest level you can get in NSW.

"I used to have about a dozen people working for me and at building companies. I trained about 18 to 20 apprentices over the last 30 years," he said.

Wollemi Cabins has been his "retirement project", and he has been working on it since 1999.

"Our cabins all have a different theme, with different styles and structures," he said.

Among the Wollemi Cabins are the Dream Cabin, featuring raw sandstone slabs, natural wood beams and polished concrete floors.

A separate bath-house with hot-tub and rustic outside shower provides relaxing views over Bowen's Creek Gorge. There is also an indoor spa-bath and a towering sandstone fireplace.

The Love Tee Pee is just that: a tee pee dwelling with an attached kitchenette, living room, fire place and spa-bath.

It has through-tree views over the wilderness, and opening floor-to-ceiling windows in the annex that allow the surrounding ridge-top bushland to feel like its 'flowing in'.

Just like all ecotourism accommodation, Wollemi Cabins has an approved-fire-rated structure where visitors can gather in the event of a bushfire.

Though the RFS wasn't required to 'defend' Mr Buckett's other structures during the recent bushfires, all remain standing, save for one of Mr Buckett's sheds.

"We thought we'd lose more. We lost water pressure for a little while," he said.

"But then, you can think you're entirely prepared, and then you might have missed something."

Mr Buckett's oversight came in the form of a bunch of tools that weren't removed from a shed.

"[The shed burnt down because] a lawnmower blew up and blew a window out and that let the fire in and the shed was lost - even though the shed was fire-ready," he said.

"But all the cabins were well-prepared; we were expecting the fire for months. All the cabins survived."

He said "something interesting happened" when the bushfire surrounded the Love Tee Pee.

"The tee pee is on a 60 per cent slope and so the embers didn't sit on it long enough to burn through. We wet it down and the embers that fell off the tee pee went out on the wet ground."

When the fires came through, Mr Buckett was able to make use of a fire bunker that he built with all the necessary fire approvals into the side of a rockface.

He called it his "muckaround project", but it might have saved lives.

"Because I like building design and standards, I decided in the run-up to the bushfires to build a fire shelter according to Australian Standards. It was really an out-of-interest project.

"Mount Tomah and Mount Wilson hadn't had a fire in them for 25 years, so it was handy having a fire bunker, it gives people confidence.

"There's a long history of fires at Mount Wilson turning into huge fires at Mount Tomah and Berambing."