A controversial wind farm off the East coast of Scotland has been approved by the Scottish Government, despite objections from organisations including NatureScot and the Scottish Seabird Centre. This comes just days after President Donald Trump commented on wind farms spoiling the countryside across Europe, saying:

“Stop the windmills [sic], you’re ruining the countries. It’s so sad, you fly over, and you see these windmills all over the place, ruining your beautiful fields and valleys and killing your birds, and if they’re stuck in the oceans, ruining your beautiful oceans”.

You might argue that President Trump's remarks originate from his 2012 dispute with the Scottish Government over plans to build a wind farm near his Aberdeenshire estate. Despite his efforts to block the project, construction of the 11 wind turbines ultimately proceeded in 2018.

The Scottish Government has recently granted SSE Renewables a key consent order for the 4.1 GW Berwick Bank offshore wind farm, located off the coast of East Lothian. This could become one of the largest offshore wind farms in Europe, which will provide power to around six million homes for the UK. These are impressive figures and will certainly give the Scottish Government a huge boost to their plans for achieving Scotland’s decarbonisation and climate action goals. But at what cost to Scotland’s seabirds and other marine wildlife?

NatureScot, the Scottish Seabird Centre and many other conservation organisations have written to the Cabinet Secretary to oppose the plans for the Berwick Bank wind farm, but their concerns have fallen on deaf ears. Whilst these plans are conditional on developer SSE Renewables producing a plan to compensate for the loss of seabirds, environmentalists are worried that seabird populations, including puffins, kittiwakes and gannets will not be able to coexist with such a huge project; fearing that tens of thousands of seabirds will be killed by the development.

Seabird survival and reproductive success near wind farms can be affected both directly - through collisions with wind turbines - and indirectly, by being displaced from foraging areas and having to expend more energy to reach feeding grounds.

The Scottish Government faces a delicate challenge in balancing its ambitious renewable energy targets with the potential threat to iconic and much-loved seabird colonies, such as those on Bass Rock, home to the world’s largest Northern Gannet colony, and St Abbs Head. There is also concern that such developments could mar one of Scotland’s most scenic coastlines with industrial infrastructure.