Environmentalist movement against wind farms

• by OEGA
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Following the new about the intention of the Norwegian public capital to install three new big wind farms in the mountains of Ourense and Leon and the reactivation of wind farms in the Serra da Groba and Galiñeiro, many environmental groups and social movements have manifested their desire to join the initiatives of the Region of Ordes to curb this new expansive wave of wind power.

The main arguments of these movements are of an environmental nature

• They indicate some severe impacts on Natura 2000 areas as follows: Macizo Central Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and in the SAC and Special Proteccion Area (SPA) of birds Pena Trevinca, SAC Río Támega, SAC Bidueiral de Montederramo, SAC Ancares -Courel and SAC Ribeiras do río Sil and tributaries.
• They point out the violation of Directive 92/43 / EEC on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and Wild Fauna and Flora.
• The prevalence of environmental protection derived from Law 42/2007 of 13 December on Natural Heritage and Biodiversity, on territorial and urban planning, and the precautions that need to be taken in interventions that could affect natural areas or wild species.
• The environmental values considered to eliminate previous attempts to develop wind farms in Pena Trevinca are once again presented as the environmental values that must prevail over industrial projects.
• Surface and ground water effluents are also identified as threatened environmental values.
• Significant appeals are made concerning the artificial fragmentation of infrastructures that correspond to the same industrial project. They show how wind farms sharing essential infrastructures for their operation are divided into several parks, thereby preventing and hindering the global, summative and synergistic assessment of the environmental impacts of all the industrial project infrastructures.

Social arguments arguments against big wind farms

• They also use social arguments. They mention in several documents that the resources given to local communities upon the installation of wind farms do not suffice to compensate for their structural problems. They claim that wind farms are not a solution for rural communities.
• These movements do favor energy transition, but they defend what they call a truly sustainable and harmonious energy transition: taking into account the uniqueness of each territory, encouraging self-consumption and the development of solar thermal and photovoltaic energy, promoting responsible energy consumption, seeking to reduce individual mobility, promoting collective mobility, and so forth.

Global movement

A number of these movements have launched campaigns throughout the net to gather support, mainly through the change.org platform. Among them are the following: support for the Manifesto Aldeas Con Horizonte, support for movement against the Felga wind farm, Petition for the Courel free of wind, and the SOS Groba organization petition.
Also worth noting is a set of manifestos from several organizations: Manifesto Aldeas con Horizonte, Manifesto ALIENTE for biodiversity, Manifesto Salvemos Trevinca and Manifesto IEM PE Groba.

GWO Proposals

The GWO has always maintained that energy transition, and the ecological backdrop in which it must take place, requires different objectives beyond solely increasing installed renewable power. It requires also different actors, not the same ones that led to the self-same environmental issues that energy transition must now address. In this sense, GWO has launched several proposals:

• Environmental areas outside the industrial development of renewable energy must be reserved.
• Regional legislation must be updated to cater for technological change
• New forms of ownership in the promotion of wind farms (and other energies) must be considered and promoted
• Decisions should be taken reflectively in order to minimize future possible regrets.
• Territorial and energy planning decisions should be opened up to greater and more thoughtful citizen participation.
• Unnecessary energy consumption must be eliminated to strictly seek efficiency instead.

These are some of the measures required to make new energy, economic and ecological models inclusive and sustainable whilst responding to our own social needs as well as those of our forthcoming generations.