SEO-Birdlife: When a key stakeholder acts as environmental consultancy, The Monlora III Wind farm (I)

After the worldwide crisis Spain is under new wind developments again. This opens again the potential impacts to endangered species and habitats. A surprising case is that of Forestalia in Aragón province, where the local Government has consent several projects near Ejea de los Caballeros.  The area supports populations of sensitive species that require of appropriate pre-construction studies for birds and bats.

There, SEO-Birdlife, the Spanish Partner of Birdlife International, acted as the environmental consultancy hired by the developer. SEO-Birdlife agreed the project is a go one despite its potential impact to the ENDAGERED Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus). Given the sensitivity of the site and the species involved we make this peer review, trying to answer and understand the quality of such report and its conclusions. 

Below, Figure 1, the cover of the study entitled: "Delivery: Avifaunal study of Monlora III Wind farm. Luna, Sierra de Luna and Castejon de Valdejasa municipalities" November 2018, 32 pages.  

Figure 1. Front cover of the study

 The fieldwork was developed between December 2016 and November 2017. It is signed by Luis Tirado, Biologist and SEO representative in Aragón region for the last 11 years at least ( www.seo.org). Page 3 in the report mentions that other biologists participated, but the "human team" as the report says is not mentioned, neither the number of people involved nor their names.  

First question to know is: HOW MANY PEOPLE AND WHAT THE SKILLS OF THOSE INVOLVED WERE? 

   

 We are going into the details of the study through the methods, findings and conclusions.

Methods

 "Monlora III" Wind farm received its environmental consent by an official Resolution published in the Official Gazzette of Aragón Environmental consent August 2018 . It has thirteen turbines and a total power output of 49.5 MW.

SEO-Birdlife established 20 Vantage Points (VPs) over the entire area, the project itself and its surroundings, Figure 2. The superimposed grid has squares of 500 m side each. 

Figure 2. Map of the study area. VPs: black triangles, Turbines: red dots. The grid has squares with 500 m side each.

They made 52 visits (1 per week). The dates provided in the report shows that fieldwork was made during the weekends, ALL THE DAYS OF MONITORING/FIELDWORK WERE SATURDAYS.  

It is well known that time in the week affects the bird behavior. In this case SEO misses important scientific references on this matter such these papers in Conservation Biology or Acta Ornitologica. There are of course much more references, easy to find through scholar google including terms such as "weekends", "raptors" or "disturbance". For a Society that has a Scientific Committe, this should be a must whilst planning the fieldwork. 

The total number of monitoring hours was said to be 1,040 hr., Page 15. However, THESE HOURS INCLUDED ROAD TRANSECTS OR OTHER KIND OF TRANSECTS, probably displacements between VPs (these methods are not described in the report) so it remains unclear HOW MUCH TIME DID THEY DEVOTE TO EACH SPECIES /GROUP AND NOT JUST TO THE VP WATCHING.  

They should explain the species specific methodologies and the time of each activity and not include the overall magnitude.

Further insight into the report gives more clues. In page 27, when referring to the results and analysis, they said 520 hours were spent in monitoring (10 hrs. /day). This contradicts what said above about 1,040 as the five hundred and twenty represent only the 50% of what the report stated in page 15. If they used 20 VPs, then they monitored just 26 hrs. per VP (See what the Scottish Natural Heritage says in its guidelines Vantage Point surveys, hours of monitoring and even more, when people from Birdlife Cambridge criticized this and also suggested further monitoring time in an international scientific Journal such as IBIS is Modelled sensitivity of avian collision rate at wind turbines varies with number of hours of flight activity input data

If they spent 26 per VP over a whole year (52 visits) we could calculate the hours per vantage point and visit = 30 minutes. This is clearly well under the international best practice requirements for wind farm pre-construction studies. This number, also makes us to doubt of how many people were really involved in the monitoring.  

SEO does not take into account the minimal requirements to them; otherwise as a worldwide organization they ask developers much more fieldwork. Is it an intentional omission or just a lack of knowledge?