Impact of Wind Turbines on Avifauna and Chiropterofauna in Brazil

Wind energy, used commercially since 1976, has gained momentum in recent decades due to the depletion of fossil fuels and global warming and pollution. In Brazil, it was only in 2002 that the installation of wind farms in the country became significant. The environmental damage is mainly noise, visual and electromagnetic, in addition to the effects on wildlife. Several studies, especially in North America and Europe, have defined the impact on birds and bats (habitat reduction and exclusion, insurmountable barriers, collision, electrocution on transmission lines, reduced growth and reproduction) and its causes (weather conditions, high densities, activity/behaviour and morphophysiology of the species, migratory corridors, old wind turbines). In Brazil, knowledge of these impacts is restricted to environmental licensing reports, which are virtually inaccessible to most of the population and researchers. Thus, this study aimed to compile the impacts and mitigation measures of each of the plants operating and under installation in the country until the end of 2009, and to present them clearly to interested parties in general.

Autorentext
Biologist born in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, where he graduated in 2010 from the Federal University of Santa Catarina. He currently resides in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul, working as an environmental analyst at a Petrobras refinery.