Wind Turbines and the Sand Dune Ecosystem (1)

A few days ago, we went to see the sand dunes in Otaru, where a wind farm company is planning to build 15 wind turbines. The turbines, according to their plan, are going to be built on the sand dunes which are only 100 to 150m from the shore. the widths of the dunes are very narrow - just 20 to 30m. The base area of each turbine, including the the concrete turbine base and the road and flat area for maintenance will be around 50 x 50m. This means that the entire sand dunes will be devastated almost completely if they are to be built.

There are only few stretches of natural shoreline sand dunes left in Hokkaido, which still hold ecosystems in fairly good condition. This place is one of them.

The wind farm companies as well as the governmental administrations tend to focus much on the collision deaths of birds, but do not look at the impact of wind farms on the frail sand beach ecosystems. They also tend to ignore the fact that breeding populations of birds and other animals decline considerably where wind turbines have been built.