Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
• BirdLife Australia has one of the best databases on birds with over ten million
records gathered by volunteers from all over Australia. It's really frustrating to
open an EIS document to see that our data hasn't been accessed.
Q: (From the fl oor) Clare Hawkins (Senior Zoology, Threatened Species and Marine
Section, Department of Primary Industry, Parks, Water and Environment,
Tasmania) - Relating to that question if you're looking at things on the basis of
the state regrading where you would the best place for the wind farm to be,
rather than is that a good place for that wind farm to be proposed. Would it be
useful for the proposal to have a state-wide risk assessment - GIS based thing -
that would be publicly accessible? What would go into it for example, biodiver-
sity, wind resource, what the regulator would require? Is it useful has it been
done what do you think?
IS
• Scotland has undertaken some mapping of the entire country to effectively come
up with threatened species hot spots and I'm aware that even South Africa is
working towards that.
• We need that information, but there is some reality that its no coincidence that a
range of species coincide with high wind resource areas.
• Ideally all of those layers on top of each other might show us some spots with
good resources that don't have signifi cant issues for biodiversity. Would be a
really great starting place that we don't have at the moment.
Comment (from the fl oor) Cindy Hull Hydro Tasmania - I think it has to be a really
intelligent system that learns all the time. As this knowledge grows, based on
premise that we get good research, and that we can learn from it as it becomes
more sophisticated.
Comment (from the fl oor) Henrik Skov DHI Denmark: The perspective from
Denmark - 30 years of wind farm planning in Denmark and they have three
recommendations - be prepared, be focused and be smart. Be prepared to screen
all components. We have done two rounds of strategic planning which have been
very effi cient in seeing biodiversity hotspots. Be focused - a lot of effort in trying
to pick up from fi rst EIS in the early days. All that information has been accumu-
lated and enabled us to focus on the real issues. Be smart and use the best avail-
able technology. Strategic assessments have been part of the government Ministry
of Transport and Energy and part industry - they have conducted joint industry
projects on some of the key issues.
Q: TP-TL - Can you comment on when you think community should be engaged in
the wind farm design or planning process. What you would contribute to design
and planning process and what happens in practice?
TL
•
For a local native vegetation consultant like myself, the very beginning is always
the best on any project whether big or small.
