Not A Fan Of Wind Farms?

US President Donald Trump has come out strongly against renewable energy, claiming that wind energy ‘kills all your birds’. He has also suggested that environmentalists never talk about this problem. Does he have a point?

- Samantha Ralston-Paton

Environmentalists are, in fact, dis­cussing this issue; the need to recon­cile the development of renewable energy with the conservation of birds (and other species) is receiving increasing atten­tion globally. International mechanisms such as the Convention on the Conserva­tion of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) and the Agreement on the Con­servation of African–Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) have acknowledged the importance of renewable energy in the battle against climate change. How­ ever, they also recognise that renewable energy and associated infrastructure (such as transmission lines) may have negative impacts on species and ecosystems. Inter­national working groups have been set up in the first place to facilitate collaboration across borders to advance our understanding of the potential environmental effects of renewable energy, and secondly to ad­ dress the challenges associated with con­ serving biodiversity while facilitating the transition to low­carbon energy sources.

Does this international attention suggest there is cause for alarm? Is wind energy re­ ally killing all our birds? Trump’s claim was almost certainly limited to birds in the USA, but BirdLife South Africa has been keeping track of bird fatalities at wind farms in our country to try to answer that question.