Neighboring the Yellow Sea to the East and the Yangtze River to the South, the city of Nantong in East China's Jiangsu Province has a vast shallow intertidal zone and is home to a great variety of wild animals.
About 30 to 40 kilometers out to sea from Rudong County of Nantong, groups of wind turbines can be seen, with their blades rotating in the wind. That is the Rudong Wind Farm built and operated by China Green Development Investment Group (CGDG).
Sound ecological environment to attract birds
The wind farm consists of 50 wind turbines and protection of birds has been a focus since the very beginning of the project. The distance between every two wind turbines is about 1,300 meters to 1,500 meters and that between each row of the wind turbines is 520 meters to 690 meters, which leaves enough space for the birds to fly safely.
To avoid collisions between the birds and the rotating turbines, the edges of the blades are painted red, which effectively alarms the birds to detour.
A bird observation platform equipped with 24/7 video surveillance devices was built at the wind farm, through which CGDG staff members can get to know the living condition of birds living nearby. The platform is also a key base for scientific research. So far, it has recorded more than 200 kinds of birds including some rare species like calidris pygmeus, larus saundersi and Numenius arquata.
In order to raise awareness and improve bird protection capability of its staff members working at the wind farm, the company invited John MacKinnon, a bird conservation expert at the United Nations Development Programme to give lectures on appropriate measures.
The company's subsidiary in Jiangsu also gave out pamphlets focusing on marine ecological civilization construction and bird conservation policies to local fish farmers and villagers, encouraging them to participate in natural ecological environment protection.
Artificial propagation and releases to protect marine ecology
To increase the number of marine organisms in surrounding waters of the wind farm, create a sound environment and habitat for the project and the marine organisms and improve biocenological structure, CGDG selected fish species with high economical value and suitability to the environment to carry out a artificial propagation and release program. So far, more than 17.8 million marine creatures such as large yellow croakers, black sea breams, Fugu flavidus and clams have been targeted.
Artificial propagation and release promotes coordinated and harmonious development of coastal areas and the marine environment, while increasing earnings of the fishermen and driving development of related industries like seawater seed rearing and shipping.
CGDG will continue to stick to the principle of ecological and green development as it moves ahead, promote ecological restoration, strengthen ecological protection and maintain regional ecological balance for the sake of sustainable development.
(Executive editor: Wang Ruoting)
