Will store Scottish wind turbines in endangered Norwegian bird eldorado
A great many of Norwegian river deltas have been built down. Now Verdal municipality will refill the red-listed delta to provide storage space for Scottish wind turbines.
– If the river delta here on Ørin is destroyed, it will affect threatened bird populations all over Scandinavia. It is horrible and infinitely sad if this happens, says Kjetil Solbakken in Birdlife Norway.
– The industry has already taken most of the delta.
The river delta is a red-listed endangered nature type in Norway. On Wednesday, the nature summit starts in Montreal in Canada. The world must try to agree to save enough nature to stop the climate crisis and slow down the nature crisis.
Nature may get its Paris agreement, which the climate crisis got in 2015.
At the summit, the Norwegian government will fight for the best possible agreement for nature. But here, too, nature often rarely loses in the face of jobs and money.
In Verdal in Trøndelag, a typical conflict is now playing out in a threatened river delta.
The municipality says they must weigh consideration for nature against the need for new jobs.
Hundreds of thousands of visitors
The icy slush where the Verdalselva flows into the Trondheimsfjord has patches of snow that stick to the face. The wind sneaks through the clothes.
It is mid-tide, so parts of the sandbanks in the delta are covered with water. A little further out, rare black ducks dive for food, a large flock of brown-necked ducks land and they too start.
Along the banks, about a hundred terns search for food with their long orange beaks. Nowhere else in Norway do so many of the red-listed tjelden overwinter as here.
Hundreds of thousands of waterfowl and waders use the Ørin delta to rest and feed during bird migration in spring and autumn.
Parts of the Ørin Delta became a nature reserve in 1993 after being regulated as an industrial area. But as a compromise, a large chunk was still reserved for industry.
Now the municipality will fill this in, and give more space to Aker Solutions Verdal, which needs space to store constructions for Scottish wind turbines and salmon cages for aquaculture.
A huge amount has been destroyed
In Norway, 123 different nature types are threatened. Thousands of species depend on very special nature to live.
Some nature types, such as high mountains and Svalbard nature, have a lot of protection. Other types are far, far away from the 30 percent the researchers in the international nature panel say is a minimum, and which may become the requirement in the new nature agreement.
In Norway, as in many other countries, piecemeal and gradual development is the biggest threat.
Many Norwegian cities and towns are literally built on river deltas – the flat areas where a river meets the sea or a large lake. It was easy to build on and easy to grow. The triangular deltas are very nutritious.
Most of the large river deltas in Norway have been built out and gone forever. Those remaining are red-listed by the Species Data Bank.
1 out of 3Photo: Halvor Sørhuus / Birdlife Norway
The birds’ only option
In the last decade alone, scores of deltas have been built down and destroyed along the Trondheimsfjord.
– The destruction started hundreds of years ago. We know better today, but continue to destroy, says Kjetil Solbakken. He is secretary general of Birdlife Norway, and is now fighting tooth and nail against refilling.
He and colleague Halvor Sørhuus stir up the winter wind on the beach at Ørin:
– We are in the middle of a global and a Norwegian natural crisis. The number of birds in Norway has plummeted in the last couple of decades. Many of the species that are now threatened precisely have wetlands and river deltas as an important habitat. We can’t refill this now, just because it was regulated to industry 20 years ago. It is absurd, says Solbakken.
– This is the UN’s decade for the restoration of nature, not for more destruction. And it is maddeningly paradoxical that this unique true nature in Norway is to be demolished in order to supply Scotland with wind turbines in their green shift, he says.
Damages all of Scandinavia
There is a maximum difference of three meters between high tide and low tide in the Trondheimsfjord. This makes the Ørin area a unique area for birds.
But when there is a high tide, the birds must have a place to be.
– They are using the area the municipality will now fill again, says Halvor Sørhuus. He is a dentist, but spends all his free time fighting for the birds.
– We cannot have it so that just because our predecessors have made a wrong decision about industry, we must simply carry it out. The industry has already seized an enormous amount of this delta, says Sørhuus.
International responsibility
The two believe that Norway has an international responsibility. Many of the birds that are here in spring and autumn are on their way from Africa to Finnmark, northern Sweden and Finland. Thousands of short-billed geese on their way from Svalbard to Central Europe or hundreds of eiders from the Baltic Sea winter here.
– They move in stages between such nutrient-rich hotspots. We are talking about dozens of different species of waders, ducks and other birds. In May, it is easy to see 60-70 species in one day. Many of them are red-listed, explains Solbakken.
The reserve is an internationally protected Ramsar site.
– The filling will also threaten the Ramsar area, he says.
Aker already has a large industrial area that has been filled in in the delta. On a large part are partly overgrown rusty metal structures.
– They should clean up and use the area instead, they say.
– And look there. Enormous piles of fill material lie ready to be filled in the delta. Just as if they have already been approved for refilling, and that the investigation is now just for show, says Sørhuus.
“Not yet adopted”
Peter Voll, business manager for land management in Verdal municipality, confirms that the municipality wants to fill in part of the delta outside the current nature reserve.
– Aker Solutions plans to transform the business to the green shift. They need a new quay and area for temporary storage of large steel structures linked to offshore wind and farming. We are preparing an application for filling in the western part of the area. The impact assessments for the entire area have not yet been completed, he says.
– Ornithologists believe this area is very important for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds, and in Verdal municipality’s guidelines it says that you base management on the precautionary principle?
– The impact assessment for the western part shows that the area has an important function for some art groups. It also points out that mitigating and compensatory measures for birds should be considered when filling in this area.
– Right from the start of the first assessments, emphasis has been placed on having a close dialogue with the bird protection interests. They give us input both on the assessments and on how solutions should be designed. We want to take into account both nature and the municipality’s desire and need for new jobs, says Petter Voll.