Birds, Wind and the Making of Wind Power Landscapes in Aude, Southern France

Abstract

Landscape and birds are an important cause of blocking wind power projects. This paper investigates the question of whether birds and wind power can be part of a same landscape and what type of landscape this could compose. We do so by following birds, birdwatchers and wind power developers in their attempt to compose such a landscape in the South of France. Our perspective focuses on the attachments that animals or landscape might develop or entice humans to develop. We show that the process by which such a wind power landscape is composed engages birds into successive translations, which ultimately translate bird intelligence in composing with the wind into a quality of the landscape. As a result, such a landscape emerges from a net of relations and has a quality which is not necessarily visually readable: it is accountable to the entities which have been brought into representation through/for its making.

Cautious but Committed: Moving Toward Adaptive Planning and Operation Strategies for Renewable Energy’s Wildlife Implications

“…Moreover, there are instances where German guidelines have been adapted based on monitoring, such as adjustments made to TAK (''Tierökologische Abstandskriterien'') buffer zones for endangered birds' breeding sites in Brandenburg state based on more recent research results. Nadaï and Labussière (2010) address the relevance of micro-siting as well, based on the observed bird behavior.…”

Renewable Energies and European Landscapes

“…Conversely, cases of planning approaches based on participation (Nadaï and Labussière 2010 ) or responsive to specifi c local situations (Nadaï and Labussière 2013 and forthcoming ) have been shown to contribute to the emergence of new landscape representations and norms that could be described as energy landscapesi.e. landscapes of which renewable energy infrastructures are perceived and treated as part, even if these landscapes may face opposition (as shown by Bender 1998 ).…”

Waste-to-Energy: Fluidized Bed Technology

“…It may also concern the way of siting the wind farm, whereby specific characteristics of the living patterns of the birds can be used to redesign the wind farm [151]. The impact on wildlife is not the strongest factor in determining attitudes to wind farm developments, but the issue is closely linked to question of place identity and in particular landscape identity (section "Identity of Place").…”