From down under, news of parrot conservation! A 52-turbine wind-farm was shot down by local senators due to the large threat it posed to the endangered orange-bellied parrot (pictured above).
After blocking the wind farm in April because of a perceived threat to the parrot, Senator Campbell last week said the company could resubmit the proposal in exchange for dropping a Federal Court challenge to his original ruling.
Wind Power director Andrew Newbold said the company would resubmit the same proposal to Senator Campbell's department in about two or three weeks.
However, he said the company would move to address the minister's concerns about any threat to the parrot.
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Be careful... the orange bellied parrot is one of those things used by locals as a way of stopping any development in their area. It is far from certain that wind farms cause any harm to local bird life, and as I understand it, this wasn't even in the nesting areas of that bird.
So far it has been used to prevent relocation of chemical storages out of urban areas (where a major fire caused a lot of harm some years back in Melbourne) as well. I am profoundly skeptical when it gets mentioned.
Moreover, a greater concern than the fate of one species is the health of the overall ecosystems in the area. If windfarms can reduce the amount of pollution, or take further measures to maintaint he health of the land inwhich they are placed, then that should count for more. Preserving biodiversity is a lot more than protecting single species.
Hi,
Like John Wilkins said, in a way it's admirable that they're so concerned for the parrots, but it's all bullshit unfortunately. The local Senator involved is part of a Government that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and he's basically playing on local concerns about the windfarms being noisy. They don't give a cracker about parrots - in fact, some did a study suggesting that the chances of one of the local endangered parrots flying into the windfarm and perishing was about 1/1000.
tim.