The Foundation for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture (FCQ) has decided to suspend the release of specimens of this threatened species in Teruel, a project that had started in January 2022 but now remains in the air waiting for the planned wind farm in the Maestrazgo area to be completed. "The high risk of collision and death to which the projected deployment would expose the species makes it unaffordable to continue," warns the FCQ about the threat that bearded vultures would face, an endangered vulture species that in recent decades has returned to take flight in some summits of the Peninsula thanks to recovery programs. This foundation maintains that this is the "first case in Spain" in which a project to reintroduce a species threatened by incompatibility with a wind farm is suspended.
This entity, which from the beginning has opposed this wind development and is part of the Aliente platform that opposes renewable macroprojects, has already communicated its decision to the Government of Aragon and the European Commission. Both participate in the Iberian Corridors for the Bearded Vulture project, led by the FCQ and aims to resettle this endangered animal in areas where it had disappeared, such as the Maestrazgo and the Sierra de Gredos. But a study carried out by two FCQ experts on the flight patterns of this species and griffon vultures in the area concludes that the reintroduction is incompatible with the installation of the mills of the macropark. "The criteria for the reintroduction of species threatened with extinction established by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) would not be met, as well as the environmental guarantee criteria contemplated in the LIFE projects, of European funding," adds the foundation.
The wind project in question is the largest of those authorized to date by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition throughout the country. At first, it had 161 wind turbines, although in the environmental processing they were reduced to 125. They will be distributed by eight municipalities of the Teruel Maestrazgo. To these, Gerardo Báguena, president of the Foundation for the Conservation of the Bearded Vulture, adds another fifty more mills from other projects located in neighboring regions. All belong to companies linked to the company Forestalia. "There are some generators that are located only 2.5 kilometers from the release points of specimens," warns Báguena.
Its foundation was created in 1995 and has already managed to bring back this animal – which at the end of the last century only survived in freedom in the Pyrenees – to Picos de Europa, where the species has returned to breed in freedom. And the objective of the current Life project directed by Báguena was to do the same in the Sierra de Gredos and in the Maestrazgo. In 2022, four specimens were released in those two locations, a pair in Gredos and another pair in Teruel, to end up breeding there. The plan is to continue releasing copies. But in the case of the Maestrazgo this macropark has paralyzed the project now.
A specimen of bearded vulture in the Ordesa y Monte Perdido National Park. Alvaro Garcia
The FCQ has already communicated its decision to the Administrations and the European Commission, on which all Life programmes depend. "In the Commission they have understood it and have asked us to introduce an amendment to the project to redirect these funds towards the actions in Gredos and Picos de Europa, where there are no such threats," explains Báguena.
This conservation organization, critical of large renewable projects, points to a precautionary suspension because they continue to fight against the macropark. On the one hand, they have filed a complaint against the processing of this project in the prosecutor's office. On the other hand, they are awaiting a meeting with the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, to address this issue.
In this case, as it is a large project that far exceeds 50 megawatts of power, the processing is followed before the Ministry for Ecological Transition, although the Government of Aragon has also participated in the analysis of the environmental impact. Although it already has a positive environmental impact statement, developers still have to obtain more permits, such as building and operating authorization.
Mortality report
To conclude that the macropark is incompatible with the bearded vulture, the FCQ uses the report made by the two experts who have analyzed for months the patterns of flight and use of space in the Maestrazgo of 10 specimens of bearded vultures, the two released Teruel and another eight from another recovery program in Castellón that usually fly over this area. although they have not settled there (which is precisely what was sought with the project now suspended). In addition, data from 12 radiolabeled griffon vultures have also been added to the analysis. "The study of the geolocations provided by the satellite beacon carried by each specimen offers results that have set off all the alarms: in just one year, the bearded vultures could have collided up to 745 times with the projected wind turbines, which would mean the total disappearance of the incipient population," warns the FCQ.
Báguena points out that the Maestrazgo, where the bearded vultures that were released in Castellón were naturally tending, "was an ideal area for reintroduction". In 2020, the life Iberian Corridors for the bearded vulture was prepared and in which it was determined that the Maestrazgo was "one of the territories with high suitability for the execution of the project" since it is an area with "abundance of trophic resources" where there are "numerous historical appointments" and a "low presence of threats to the species".
The program began in January 2022 and was scheduled to be extended until 2027, but in December 2022 the favorable environmental impact statement of the Maestrazgo macropark was published in the Official State Gazette (BOE), which calls into question this reintroduction program in the opinion of the FCQ.
Apart from this project, the FCQ has asked to "open a deep reflection and debate" on the way in which renewables are being promoted. "It is not acceptable that to solve a problem of production and contamination another is generated as it is to compromise the survival of the Spanish avifauna," warns this organization. "Even more so when there are innovative technological measures and management procedures for complexes that considerably reduce bird mortality," he adds, referring to systems such as radar or computer systems to reduce collisions.
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