Extremadura – very bad news for cranes
John Muddeman
03/03/2009 20:14:47
Principal Common Crane roost and also feeding areas to disappear under a huge thermo-solar plant
Posted in: Birds, Endangered Wildlife and Habitats | Extremadura | Western Spain
What a sad way to kick off my blogs…
Bad news from Extremadura. In late January, the decision was made to go ahead with the installation of a huge thermo-solar power plant on the Casas de Hitos estate, Madrigalejo, N Extremadura. During the first coordinated Common Crane Grus grus roost count in winter 2007/8, the surveyors logged over 11 000 cranes roosting on the site, which is soon due to be smothered by two areas of panels plus associated infrastructures (including an electricity sub-station, 2 natural gas burning furnaces, chimneys for dispersing gases and others acting as cooling towers and storage areas for the associated mineral salts). The panels will directly occupying 300 Ha in two blocks, and over 40 km of high-tension electricity lines will also need to put installed to link this with the principal power grid (and so cross other areas also crucial for wintering cranes).
Despite inadequacies with the original impact assessments (including apparently not even mentioning the cranes!) and registering the project in two separate parts (despite common elements, and so not complying with regional legislation), go-ahead has still been given despite considerable opposition from conservation bodies and interested individuals. Thank you to those individuals who sent protest letters / emails to the relevant parties. Further information in Spanish is available on the web, e.g. on the SEO/BirdLife website
The final impact on the area, including on two SPAs affected, and on the numbers of wintering wildfowl and other birds (more waterbirds were counted during the 2006 winter census than at any other site in Spain – including Doñana and the Ebro Delta!), will only be know when work is complete and the damage done.
With the rampant proliferation of wind turbine farms in Extremadura too, some of which directly occupy areas with breeding Black Vultures Aegypius monachus and very close (within 200m) to internationally important bat roosts (G. Schruer pers. com.), so much for the ‘green’ reputation of renewable energies of these types in the region!
Relating to the impact of wind turbines in inappropriate places, look up ‘barotrauma’ on the web and consider what we must be doing…
Related Information:
Further information on birds in Extremadura
John's tours in Extremadura in 2010
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