Professor Yvonne Buckley:

I was referring to the appropriate siting of onshore and offshore wind farms within their own realms. Regarding onshore wind farms, there may be areas in which it is more appropriate to place them than others. That depends on the land use it is being converted from, what kind of management goes along with the wind farm in that area and whether there are species of particular concern in the area. One would not want to put a wind farm somewhere where it will have a really negative effect on the hen harrier, the white-tailed eagle or something like that. That is what I meant by appropriate siting. One needs to have regard to the biodiversity in the area one intends to develop. That goes for offshore as well as onshore. There are many species of cetaceans and birds which use areas offshore that could be impacted by wind farms. It will require work to ensure appropriate siting of wind farms so those impacts on biodiversity are minimised and measures put in place to protect the biodiversity in those areas.

Regarding the question on the role of local authorities in implementation of the biodiversity action plan and of climate action, local authorities have a strong role to play, but it is a matter of scale. Some actions and decisions can be taken at a local authority level or even on a smaller scale at the level of individual landowners or groups of landowners in a particular area while other decisions and actions will have to be taken at the national and international levels. It is a question of what decision is being made and what scale it can appropriately be made at but I would love to see local authorities being appropriately resourced to carry out biodiversity and climate actions in their own areas or at regional scale as well as resourcing at national and international levels for such actions.