Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
wrybills
Anarhynchus frontalis
, and banded dotterel
Charadrius bicinctus
. HMR
will be significantly larger (168 turbines), so a more comprehensive bird monitoring
approach and detailed collision risk modelling was deemed to be necessary by the
councils, Contact Wind and DoC. Ecological field research not only studied and
assessed effects on shorebirds, but also on all other habitats of indigenous fauna and
flora within the locality. However, this paper only deals with the process by which a
biodiversity offsetting strategy was developed as part of the RMA resource consent
application and consultation process for migrating shorebirds.
Key learnings include the necessity to undertake robust pre-construction surveys
using a wide range of methods in order to determine migratory bird numbers; review
and refine strike models to ensure they do not give unnecessarily conservative
outputs; and in order to determine measurable offset targets and outputs, a substan-
tial amount of monitoring is required.
The process for determining the inputs and outcomes of the avi-fauna monitoring
and strike modelling was similar to that for Taharoa C. As part of the Board of
Inquiry process an 'Expert Shorebird Group' was established. The group consisted
of a number of scientists in order to provide inputs from the applicant (Contact
Wind Ltd), the DoC, who had made a submission on the applications and the admin-
istrative authorities (Waikato Regional Council and Waikato District Council). Both
of the DoC ecological representatives were specialist shorebird researchers whereas
the others were more general ornithologists or ecologists. Two British wind farm
bird specialists were included for peer-review comments and both parties also added
a statistician as the surveys proceeded. The senior author, who had been part of the
bird group for Taharoa C negotiations, was commissioned by Contact Wind after the
shorebird group had been established. His specific advice and input had to be fed
into the group via the established Contact Wind representatives, as his inclusion on
the shorebird group was not supported by DoC.
Shorebird Monitoring
Many New Zealand shorebirds migrate every summer and winter between their breed-
ing grounds in the south and their wintering grounds in the north - known colloquially
as 'internal migrants'. The broad route of this migration is largely thought to be along
the east coast of the South Island and then once crossing Cook's Straight, along the
west coast of the North Island, but the specific route(s) that these shorebird species
take when they do this is poorly understood (Fig.
2
). It was generally assumed that
those species that overwinter in harbours north of the Waikato will pass in the vicinity
of the proposed HMR wind farm. How many of those cross over land, and where, had
not been previously described in this region. A detailed description of the specific
routes that each species takes on migration was therefore necessary to determine the
risk that the proposed HMR wind farm posed to migrant shorebirds.
