North West Tasmania’s green energy sector just got a major boost.
Robbins Island will soon be home to a massive 900 MW wind farm, and thousands of homes will be renewably powered.
But like so many projects that look clean from a distance, there’s a price that wildlife has to pay. A species that’s already critically endangered is in the line of fire.
Are we destroying the planet’s wild spaces in our race to save it?
The price of power: How green is in conflict with green
A contentious wind farm proposed for Robbins Island off North West Tasmania has environmentalists up in arms.
The plan is great from a clean energy viewpoint. Up to 100 turbines will be installed on the nearly 250,000-acre island. An estimated 400,000 homes will be powered.
It’s a great boost for the region’s clean sector, unlocking one of the largest private investments in Tasmania’s history.
There’s potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 3.4 million tonnes a year.
The Robbins Island wind farm project was officially greenlit by Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt. But only after years of lengthy delays and legal appeals, including an overturned state EPA ruling.
This project involved a massive bypass of usual environmental safeguards, risking a hidden casualty.
An endangered bird species is trying to survive in the development area, and now a divisive green vs. green debate is raging.
The battle for Robbins Island: Who—or what—has the right to the land?
Robbins Island supports threatened bird species like the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot and the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle.
This is why the project was only approved under strict environmental conditions.
The developer, ACEN Australia, has to fund conservation programs and conduct intense surveys for three years before construction can begin.
A mandatory bird and bat management plan has to be in place. Crucially, this means the potential shutdown of some turbines during the annual migration of the orange-bellied parrot.
Environmental organizations are totally against the project’s approval.
They argue that constructing a wind farm directly in the migratory flight path leaves the parrot species open to complete extinction.
Some birds have adapted to accept turbines in their path, but that’s highly unlikely in this case.
This fierce pushback highlights a profound modern dilemma. Can an energy project truly be considered “green” if it threatens the survival of an entire species?
Conservationists are flagging a flaw in the approval logic
The orange-bellied parrot is so threatened that only 100 are left in the wild. This bird has been the focus of an intensive government-funded recovery effort, and it is named as one of the 100 priority species for conservation.
Robbins Island sits directly within their path as they journey between the Australian mainland and their Tasmanian breeding grounds.
Approval conditions mandate a plan that “might need to include curtailment or shutdown of all or some turbines” at certain times. This strategy has been used on other farms to some success.
But conservationists argue this logic is a gamble, not a solution.
Years of conservation efforts undone
BirdLife Australia expressed deep disappointment over the decision. They say it potentially undermines years of effort and significant investment to rescue the species.
The population is so precariously low that a single flock hitting a blade could trigger extinction.
Activists maintain that “it is not a climate-plus to destroy threatened species.”
Relying on reactive shutdown windows still jeopardizes the parrot’s immediate survival.
If saving the planet’s climate means sacrificing the species that live on it, are we actually winning? A cooler world will feel remarkably empty if the sky is cleared of its rarest birds just to keep our lights on.