By way of background, it is important to know that only in 200d
the fédéral government had submitted an application to the European Commission to hâve, among other areas, Sylt's outer reef
which had already been identified years earlier as an Important
Bird Area by BirdLife International, recognised as a Flora-FaunaHabitat Area [FFH area] and as an EU bird sanctuary. This was
not the only reason why many ornithologists took a critical view of
the choice of the Butendiek site. One of the accusations was that
climate protection had been given priority under the aegis of the
Fédéral Environment Minister at the time, Jürgen Trittin [Green
Party], Meanwhile, Butendiek's then co-Managing Director, Wolfgang Paulsen, defended the project site against massive criticism from nature conservationists - even after its nomination as
an FFH area. "As the designers at the time, we simply didn't want
to go so far out into deep water which would mean having to build
huge foundations. We chose smaller turbines and we wanted to
avoid long power Unes in the sea. The energy turnaround was our
motivation and we wanted to reconcile economy and ecology",
says Paulsen looking back. "We cherished the naïve idea of supplying green power to the island of Sylt. But that was precisely
what Energieversorgung Sylt, the local municipal utility on the
island, rejected. Many inhabitants of the island also rejected the
idea because they feared that we would ruin their views with our
turbines", he says summarising the heated discussions of those
days on the popular holiday island.
Even the accompanying ecological research became the increasing focus of criticism. During his work on the Butendiek site
- which was anything but unproblematic from his perspective
- Dr. Georg Nehls frequently found himself caught between the
lines of nature conservation and climate protection. "But without
climate protection, nature conservation is no longer conceivable today", he emphasizes. "Compiling the base data for an environmental impact study was a genuinely pioneering project for
us biologists because at that time there was no expérience or
guidelines whatsoever to fall back on", States Nehls casting his
mind back. "There were simply no large-scale aerial counts, let
alone any hard and fast knowledge of the distribution of seabirds
and marine mammals.
That is why the standards for environmental impact assessments for offshore projects in Germany were significantly advanced during the Butendiek project." Although, as he concédés,
he would not claim to be omniscient with the existing data material. Nevertheless, he and his team came to the conclusion that
based on the bird census, the number of birds within the project
area was not exceeding the bird population in the surrounding
zones.
After wpd had acquired the project rights, the third year of investigations started in 2011 as prescribed by the BSH as part of
the standard nature conservation investigations. For this work,
wpd mandated the team around Georg Nehls who were therefore able to conclude the work they had started years previously
with a final report. "Basically we continued the investigations with
the same methods and the same intensity of counting as we did
previously", explains the responsible project manager, Félix Weifè
from BioConsult SH.
83
the fédéral government had submitted an application to the European Commission to hâve, among other areas, Sylt's outer reef
which had already been identified years earlier as an Important
Bird Area by BirdLife International, recognised as a Flora-FaunaHabitat Area [FFH area] and as an EU bird sanctuary. This was
not the only reason why many ornithologists took a critical view of
the choice of the Butendiek site. One of the accusations was that
climate protection had been given priority under the aegis of the
Fédéral Environment Minister at the time, Jürgen Trittin [Green
Party], Meanwhile, Butendiek's then co-Managing Director, Wolfgang Paulsen, defended the project site against massive criticism from nature conservationists - even after its nomination as
an FFH area. "As the designers at the time, we simply didn't want
to go so far out into deep water which would mean having to build
huge foundations. We chose smaller turbines and we wanted to
avoid long power Unes in the sea. The energy turnaround was our
motivation and we wanted to reconcile economy and ecology",
says Paulsen looking back. "We cherished the naïve idea of supplying green power to the island of Sylt. But that was precisely
what Energieversorgung Sylt, the local municipal utility on the
island, rejected. Many inhabitants of the island also rejected the
idea because they feared that we would ruin their views with our
turbines", he says summarising the heated discussions of those
days on the popular holiday island.
Even the accompanying ecological research became the increasing focus of criticism. During his work on the Butendiek site
- which was anything but unproblematic from his perspective
- Dr. Georg Nehls frequently found himself caught between the
lines of nature conservation and climate protection. "But without
climate protection, nature conservation is no longer conceivable today", he emphasizes. "Compiling the base data for an environmental impact study was a genuinely pioneering project for
us biologists because at that time there was no expérience or
guidelines whatsoever to fall back on", States Nehls casting his
mind back. "There were simply no large-scale aerial counts, let
alone any hard and fast knowledge of the distribution of seabirds
and marine mammals.
That is why the standards for environmental impact assessments for offshore projects in Germany were significantly advanced during the Butendiek project." Although, as he concédés,
he would not claim to be omniscient with the existing data material. Nevertheless, he and his team came to the conclusion that
based on the bird census, the number of birds within the project
area was not exceeding the bird population in the surrounding
zones.
After wpd had acquired the project rights, the third year of investigations started in 2011 as prescribed by the BSH as part of
the standard nature conservation investigations. For this work,
wpd mandated the team around Georg Nehls who were therefore able to conclude the work they had started years previously
with a final report. "Basically we continued the investigations with
the same methods and the same intensity of counting as we did
previously", explains the responsible project manager, Félix Weifè
from BioConsult SH.
83