The Greens have again called for the pilitika/Robbins Island wind farm project to be abandoned due to its numerous environmental red flags. This includes fresh concerns raised by the Federal Environmental Department at Senate Estimates this week about the proponents failure to produce information on managing risks to one of lutruwita/Tasmania’s last Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD) free habitats.
The pilitika/Robbins Island wind farm project would see hundreds of hectares of critical Tasmanian devil habitat cleared, adjacent to where the deadly DFTD was recently detected, and where hundreds of devils from this population have been killed on roads in recent years.
Concerns about this project’s impact on the Tasmanian devil follow a bilateral federal-state EPA assessment that ruled the windfarm must shut for five months each year to avoid impacting migrating orange bellied parrots.
As stated by Greens senator for lutruwita/Tasmania, Peter Whish-Wilson:
“The Greens support a rapid renewable energy transition, but it would be a cruel irony if Australia’s renewable energy projects come at the expense of our threatened and iconic species.
“We need to have confidence that wind farms – like any energy project – don’t damage the environment, and the fact is the pilitika/Robbins Island wind farm project hasn’t been able to prove that.
“The federal government’s oversight of the pilitika/Robbins Island wind farm is going to be a real test on how serious it is about reaching its ‘zero new extinction’ target and implementing strong environmental laws that actually protect critical habitat and wildlife instead of relying on dodgy offsetting schemes.
“Tassie devils are only just clawing their way back from the horrendous DFTD that wiped out 95% of the species’ population, while also battling a myriad of other pressures including land clearing, mining, logging, and becoming roadkill. Needless to say, a massive industrial wind farm on pilitika/Robbins Island is only going to add unacceptable pressure to the plight of the Tasmanian devil.”
