Wrest Windfarms aWay from Wilderness

The environmental movement has historically embraced renewable energy as unequivocally “good”.

In contrast, ever since the first winds farms were proposed in Australia, objectors have said “I support renewable energy, but just not here“. They’ve been on their own.

2019 was when the environmental movement at large first became aware a more nuanced position might be necessary: Bob Brown spoke out against a proposed wind farm on Robbins Island on the north coast of Tasmania. But little has happened since.

A sensible position would be:

Onshore wind farms should only be allowed on farmland and that farmland must be at least 5km away from a national park, nature reserve, or major river or wetland

Existing farm land is a suitable place for renewable energy since this is already exploited economically, has already lost most of its environmental significance, and is capable of simultaneous dual use, that is farming under turbines.

Without a proximity restriction like this, areas of land reserved for nature are further threatened. Surely the least we can do is leave these alone, via a suitable buffer zone (eg 5km)?

Here is a partial list of current wind farm proposals abutting national parks:

No doubt there are others; it would be good to add them.

The proposed Jeremiah wind farm is not just close to Nature Reserves; it also abuts the Murrumbidgee River valley before it emerges into the riverina plains, a significant riparian and landscape feature.

In each of the above cases, locals are isolated and alone, fighting to protect vestiges of nature, without the assistance of laws people would expect to be in place. The same protracted battle, different participants, over and over.

Occasionally the locals eventually win, an example being the Jupiter Windfarm south of Goulburn NSW, but this seems to come down to being vocal and demonstrating an absence of social license (that is, human interest), as opposed to the intrinsic interests of the natural environment.

Back in 2019, Richard Dennis wrote “There are better and worse places to build turbines. Australians should be encouraged to take part in such debates”

In NSW in 2021, alterations to policy settings acknowledged there are better and worse places in a small way:

• don’t build them near regional cities (amendments to the Infrastructure SEPP)
• do allow them in pine plantations (Forestry Act 2012 s.59(1A))

But so far, there is no policy to enshrine the obvious point made by the Wilderness Society in America:

we need to make sure renewables are being built in the right places, limiting impacts to sensitive wildlands and wildlife.

In Australia, the bar is far higher: the EPBC Act protects only “Matters of national environmental significance” (think world heritage, wetlands of international importance, nationally threatened species).

Not national parks. The National Parks Association of NSW did recommend that all NSW National Parks, Nature Reserves and wilderness areas should be classified as ‘Matters of National Environmental Significance’ for the purposes of the EPBC, but this fell on deaf ears.

State legislation tends to leave it pretty much at that, also keeping them outside parks. In Victoria, for example, Wind energy facilities are not permitted in national parks, state parks and coastal parks and other high quality environmental and landscape locations in the state.

But they are allowed next to them – no buffer zone – as close as you like, even though birds and bats take little notice of such boundaries.

Unfortunately, without Australia’s premier environmental organisations taking the lead, there is little pressure on government to enshrine better protection in planning policy.

For example, the ACF wants Australia to be a renewable energy superpower, and have strong environment protection laws, but doesn’t acknowledge any friction between the two.

The Wilderness Society pushes for strong national laws to protect the environment, but doesn’t suggest these laws should limit the location of wind farms.

In contrast, CAFNEC (in northern Queensland) have articulated a policy with a proximity restriction:

With a new age of energy comes an opportunity to create a better relationship between nature and energy projects. The transition to renewables must be just; for communities and for nature. While a transition to renewable energy is essential for a safe climate future, so is the protection and enhancement of Queensland’s natural areas, its forests, water ecosystems and wildlife.

We will not support any energy development that comes at an unacceptable cost to nature, including renewable energy. That means it must not

– Be on the site of, directly adjacent to, or directly impact:

Matters of National Environmental Significance
Matters of State Environmental Significance

– Reduce or remove threatened species habitat

– Adversely impact aquatic ecosystems or water sources

But that’s in Queensland, and its not government policy, there or anywhere else.

And so in Tasmania, the Robbin Island proposal near the Robbins Passage/Boullanger Bay wetlands grinds on.

It shouldn’t be this way. Why the silence from the green lobby?

As Kim Anderson, Convenor of CHCAN put it:

“At the moment we have a situation where any private landholder can offer up their land for an energy project.

“Private landholders and big companies should not be dictating where our energy infrastructure is placed.

“Instead we say the State Government should be putting in place publicly agreed planning laws which identify appropriate areas – and importantly, specify no-go zones.”

Is it so hard to take a clear position? CAFNEC shows the way.

Whilst renewable energy is “good”, it is better in some places than others. When can we expect the ACF et al to clearly articulate this?