Press Release
PRESS STATEMENT – PROACT INTERNATIONAL
Thursday, 21 September 2006
Appeal to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) to initiate and promote a moratorium on all wind farm development on sensitive habitat of endangered birds and other wildlife in the United Kingdom.
Birdwatchers, ornithologists and nature lovers in the UK are increasingly concerned about the large scale planning and erection of wind farms in areas where significant bird and other wildlife populations and habitats are likely to be adversely affected. We support the aim to increase the usage of a broad mix of effective forms of renewable energy, offering long-term potential for the production of clean energy with minimal impact on the environment.
Almost all of the 3,248 signatories of a petition to the RSPB, as the leading nature protection organisation in the UK, are active members of one or more conservation organisations in the UK and worldwide. Some 284 of them are, or have been, members of the RSPB for a considerable number of years
While welcoming the concern that the RSPB has demonstrated, and the many objections it has lodged, about proposals for the erection of wind farms in some sensitive areas, we believe that the RSPB’s stance on the core of the windfarm debate does not go far enough. Evidence collected from various sites worldwide over the years confirms that poorly sited wind farms can have severe to fatal consequences for birds and other wildlife, through collision with turbines, habitat degradation or population disturbance. Recent disturbing news of mortality and displacement of White-tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) at Smøla in Norway has, as stated by the RSPB, “increased fears that wind farms in Britain could take a similar toll on native and migrant wild birds”. Britain’s Golden and White-tailed Eagles, with their requirements for wide-ranging and unfragmented habitat, are of course the most high profile of the many species adversely affected by badly sited and congested wind farm sites.
[It is our view therefore that the RSPB should initiate urgent action in order to wholly fulfil its traditional and primary objective of the protection of birds in the United Kingdom, at the same time setting their customary example for other countries in the field of bird conservation.
The full text of our appeal to the RSPB is attached.
David J A Conlin
(Name, address etc.,)
Notes for Editors:
1. Proact International is a ‘virtual’ internet lobby organisation with almost 900 members in 70 countries. We campaign for the conservation and protection of birds and their habitats worldwide.
2. Proact was founded in 2000 by David Conlin, ex-British Army officer and Diplomatic Service. He now works as a freelance ornithological and environmental translator and lives in Berlin, Germany and the Czech Republic. He is a member of many ornithological organisations in UK and Germany and a long term member of the RSPB.
3. We have had a number of successful campaigns over the past 6 years and cooperate with other organisations.
4. The present campaign was conceived, discussed, set up and implemented through birder mailing lists and forums on the internet.
