A couple of days ago I announced on Bird Forum that the destruction of one of the major coastal headlands in Bulgaria, the "Emine" Important Bird Area had begun:
http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=106946
and that agiant new holiday complex was being built on the site. Well, today I am very sad to announce that the project for building a wind-farm on Bulgaria's second major coastal headland of Cape Kaliakra has suddenly surged ahead without warning and the construction of the wind-farm is well underway!!
For those of you who don't know the "Kaliakra" Important Bird Area, it is one of two crucial headlands jutting out into the Black Sea along the Bulgarian coast. The flora and fauna of the region is of outstanding significance, and the site is desiganted as a NATURA 2000 site under the EU Birds Directive and EU Habitats Directive, and should be fully protected. Here is a brief summary of its importance to birds:
"The Kaliakra IBA is the only site in Bulgaria, which keeps the remaining Eastern Dobrudzha steppe, as well as the biggest cliffs along the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. It supports 310 bird species, 71 of which are listed in the Red Data Book for Bulgaria (1985). Of the birds occurring there 106 species are of European conservation concern (SPEC) (BirdLife International, 2004), 17 of them being listed in category SPEC 1 as globally threatened, 21 in SPEC 2 and 68 in SPEC 3 as species threatened in Europe. The area provides key habitats for 100 species, included in Annex 2 of the Biodiversity Act, which need special conservation measures, of which 95 are listed also in Annex I of the Birds Directive. The territory of Kaliakra holds the last big and comparatively well preserved steppe habitat in the Dobrudzha. It is inhabited by typical steppe species, which are quite numerous – Stone Curlew Burhinus oedicnemus, Greater Short-toed Lark Calandrella brachydactyla and Calandra Lark Miliaria calandra, 4 Wheater species, Rose-colored Starling Sturnus roseus. Almost the whole national population of the Pied Wheatear Oenanthe pleshanka is concentrated in the region. The Stone Curlew, the Greater Short-toed Lark and the Calandra Lark are presented there with the biggest populations in the country. The coastal cliffs host the only Bulgarian colony of the European Shag Phalacrocorax aristotelis. The open biotope supports a number of birds of prey, like the Long-legged Buzzard Buteo rufinus, the Common Kestrel Falco tinnunculus, the Hobby Falco subbuteo, the Levant Sparrowhawk Accipiter brevipes, the Eagle Owl Bubo bubo, etc. In the marine area of Kaliakra are registered the biggest flocks of the Mediterranean Shearwater Puffinus yelkouan in the country. The region is of exceptional importance during migration and it is typical bottleneck site, as it is located on the Via Pontica – the second biggest migration flyway in Europe. Every autumn considerable numbers of soaring birds – more than 29,000 storks, pelicans and cranes and more than 3,000 birds of prey, including globally threatened species like the Pallid Harrier Circus macrourus, the Saker Falcon Falco cherrug and the Imperial Eagle Aquila heliaca – pass over Kaliakra. Cape Kaliakra is the point where Bulgaria’s land territory reaches farthest into the sea. Due to the specific geography of the coastline (direction east – west) and the predominant NW wind migratory birds stay in the area longer than usual migrants, trying to avoid sea and to go back again above the mainland, and soaring to get higher. More than 60% of the migratory birds fly through the area up to 150 m high. When the wind is very strong storks and raptors (mainly harriers) lend on the fields between Kavarna and Cape Kaliakra. Only 9% of the birds pass the area flying higher than 500 m. The whole territory of Kaliakra SPA between Kavarna and Tyulenovo is used as stopover site for migratory storks. The Kaliakra IBA is used as stopover site for migratory storks. As they confront the sea on their way south, the numerous flocks of songbirds, Quail and the globally threatened Corncrake Crex crexstop there to roost and feed. They migrate mainly during the night. More than 50,000 are registered only in the light part of the days during the autumn migration. Significant numbers of waterbirds overwinter in the area of Kaliakra, mainly geese, which stay there between December and March. They overnight in the sea and every day they fly over Kaliakra in order to feed in the inland arable lands. Often they land to feed in the arable land in the limits of the proposed SPA. In smaller numbers but regularly the globally threatened Red-breasted goose also overwinter in the region. Forty rare, threatened and endemic plant species and sub-species have been established in the region. Eight of them are included in the European list of rare, threatened and endemic plants and 20 are listed in the Red Data Book for Bulgaria (1984), 15 of them being in the category “rare” and 10 – “threatened with extinction”."
I am afraid to report that the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of birds has just discovered that without warning round-the-clock construction of a massif wind-farm has already begun in the "Kaliakra" Important Bird Area. The pylons for 29 wind turbines have already been erected as you can see from the following photos just published by the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds on their website:
http://bspb.org/show/901-33
Once again the Bulgarian authorities are allowing the systematic destruction of their biodiversity in total contravention of national and international laws!
