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The Mitigation of Impact and the Impact of Mitigation: An Ethical Perspective

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Wind Energy and Wildlife Impacts

Abstract

Societal concerns regarding the negative impacts of wind turbines on species and ecosystems have placed more emphasis on mitigation efforts pre- and post-construction. While the mitigation hierarchy is usually fronted to deal with negative ecological impacts, it is hardly employed accordingly. This calls for the core of the problem to be addressed, namely, the lack of an appropriate framework for mitigation as a concept to properly address ecological impacts caused by wind-power development. In this chapter, mitigation is defined as the intervention(s) implemented to affect the risk of wind turbines impacting species or ecosystems. This concept is placed within a social-ecological context where the consecutive steps of the mitigation hierarchy may be affected by socio-economic, technological or environmental spheres of interest. Decisions relating to mitigation are in principle normative, which necessitates addressing three central ethical questions: (1) In which circumstances should mitigation be implemented? (2) How much mitigation is required? (3) Who is responsible for mitigation? Implementing mitigation requires decision-makers to acknowledge that trouble never comes alone, which requires balancing trade-offs and embracing uncertainty into the decision-making process. Adaptive and participatory management may be the best decision-making framework to do this, as it allows for improved ecological understanding through monitoring and a flexible approach to mitigate locally but manage regionally.

With birds in its wake

Painted wings, feathered blades

Art of reduction

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Espen Dyrnes Stabell and Daniel Steel for their valuable input during discussion on how I could apply their ethical framework for distributive fairness to the mitigation hierarchy for wind power. I also thank two anonymous reviewers for their critical comments that improved the contents of this chapter.

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  1. Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), Trondheim, Norway

    Roel May

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  1. Roel May
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Correspondence to Roel May .

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  1. Department of Mathematics and Centre for Mathematics and Applications (CMA), Faculty of Sciences and Technology of NOVA University of Lisbon, Monte da Caparica, Portugal, MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Regina Bispo

  2. CIBIO/InBIO – Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources, University of Porto, Vairão, Portugal

    Joana Bernardino

  3. Bioinsight, Odivelas, Portugal

    Helena Coelho

  4. MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    José Lino Costa

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May, R. (2019). The Mitigation of Impact and the Impact of Mitigation: An Ethical Perspective. In: Bispo, R., Bernardino, J., Coelho, H., Lino Costa, J. (eds) Wind Energy and Wildlife Impacts . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05520-2_6

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