Abstract
In order to plan future renewable energy technologies (RET) in a sustainable way, impacts on migrating species should be minimised. As RET proceed rapidly worldwide, impacts might be serious but on the other hand knowledge on minimising these impacts increases as well. CMS, AEWA and BirdLife International realised this and started a cooperative initiative to present an overview of current knowledge (Van der Winden et al. 2015) to be used in minimising impacts on migratory species.
This guidelines report provides expert guidance on minimising the impacts of RET on migratory species. This includes steps in the planning, design and policy process as well as mitigating and avoiding possible impacts by renewable energy technologies. The types of renewable energy and site specific situations make it impossible to provide straightforward guidelines ensuring sustainable planning in an easy way. This means that procedures, policy as well as mitigation techniques should be integrated in the planning process to make it most effectively. This document combines existing guidelines and examples of good practices related to six types of renewable energy technology, including bioenergy, geothermal energy, hydropower, ocean energy, solar energy and wind energy.