No one disputes that wind turbines cause fatalities among birds; more complicated is the legal battle over the prevention of that death. Anyone who has no ‘specific’ interest in protecting these birds and wrongly fears that the victims of the rotor blades will end up in the garden, will not be heard by the administrative court to prevent the construction of the turbine.
This was the experience of the Trienekens couple from the hamlet of ‘t Goy (municipality of Houten), who unsuccessfully tried to have the nature permit for the Goyerbrug wind farm destroyed by the Council of State. Exactly a week after the cork was removed from the bottle, because the same Council of State then destroyed the environmental permit for Goyerbrug. Due to the latter, the construction of the wind farm along the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal has been shelved for the time being.
For five years, the couple litigated against the imminent arrival of the wind farm containing a turbine – the closest – drawn 285 meters from their garden. “We assume that the race is now over,” it noted General Newspaper last week after the destruction of the environmental permit, which turned out to be in violation of European environmental legislation.
Whether birds such as the buzzard, often seen there, will be spared a dangerous obstacle remains to be seen. Not only can the environmental permit still be amended and granted, the nature permit for Goyerbrug is unaffected for the time being.
Explanation
Complicated? An explanation from the Council of State roughly boils down to this: different rules apply to the different permits required. The environmental permit makes construction possible, the nature permit is required if such a wind farm is to be located in an area where natural damage is to be feared.
It is a fact that rotor blades cause fatalities among birds, which means that damage to nature is also a fact. In a legal sense, that damage is weighed up against other interests. In principle, the bird loses out against the need (climate) to generate sustainable energy.
Anyone who does not agree with this legal state of affairs must have a ‘specific interest’ in defending birds, a spokesman for the highest administrative court explains the ruling on the nature permit. ‘Bird protection, for example, as an organisation. He has in the statutes to stand up for birds.’
A person living in the vicinity of a wind turbine who is concerned with animal suffering, who cannot bear the mere thought of slaughter, has no real interest. And is declared inadmissible by the court. The spokesperson for the Council of State: ‘This is not a legal issue that only applies to wind turbines.’
Korenwolf
Many construction projects require a nature permit. Those projects may also endanger, or worse, animals other than birds. For example, the habitat of the sand lizard plays a role in many legal proceedings. A famous example from earlier years is the (now almost extinct) corn wolf. Advocates of (or on behalf of) the grub wolf have at least managed to delay many building plans.
Sometimes it happens that a bird itself represents such an ‘interest’ that an imagined wind farm has to give way. At the beginning of this year, the initiators for a wind farm in the Veluwe had to look for another location because the marked spot was very close to the honey buzzard’s nesting area. This bird enjoys the highest European protection status. In this case it was not the judge who decided something, but the provincial government that realized in time the ‘specific importance’ of the bird itself.
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