Over a decade of failure to implement UNEP/EUROBATS guidelines in wind energy planning: A call for action

• Published in: Conservation science and practice 2022-11, Vol.4 (11), p.n/a
• Main Authors: Barré, Kévin, Froidevaux, Jérémy S. P., Leroux, Camille, Mariton, Léa, Fritze, Marcus, Kerbiriou, Christian, Le Viol, Isabelle, Bas, Yves, Roemer, Charlotte
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agreements; avoidance; Bats; Biodiversity; Collision mortality; collision risk; Compliance; conservation planning; ecological impact assessment; Energy; Environmental Sciences; Fatalities; Guidelines; international environmental agreement; Life Sciences; mitigation hierarchy; policy; Turbines; Wind farms; Wind power; Wind power generation; Wind turbines
• ISSN: 2578-4854; 2578-4854
• DOI: 10.1111/csp2.12805

Wind power generation has grown exponentially over the past 20 years to meet international goals of increasing the share of renewables in energy production. Yet, this process has too often been conducted at the cost of airborne biodiversity such as birds and bats. The latter are severely threatened due to deaths by collision at wind turbine. The UNEP/EUROBATS agreement that came into force in 1994 is now ratified by 37 countries; since 2008, it recommends to site wind turbines at least 200 m away from woody edges to decrease bat fatality risks. However, 14 years later we still do not know to what extent this international recommendation has been applied in Europe. We assessed siting distances between woody edges and wind turbines for the largest wind energy producers among the UNEP/EUROBATS parties: the UK, Germany, and France. We show that 61%, 78%, and 56%, respectively, of the installed wind turbines did not comply with UNEP/EUROBATS guidelines, without improvement over time. We identified probable causes of these findings and provided key policy recommendations to achieve compliance to UNEP/EUROBATS guidelines such as better: (i) inclusion in regulatory texts, (ii) notification of the environmental authorities, and (iii) strategic, well‐informed, forward planning of areas suitable for wind turbine development. We showed that the three largest wind energy contributors in Europe (France, Germany, and UK) do not comply with the EUROBATS guideline that was published in 2008 of siting wind turbines far enough from woody edges to limit threats to bat population viability through collisions. We did not find any improvement of compliance over time. We identified probable causes of these findings and provided key policy recommendations to achieve compliance to EUROBATS guidelines such as better: (i) inclusion in regulatory texts, (ii) notification of the environmental authorities, and (iii) strategic, well‐informed, and forward planning of areas suitable for wind energy development.