Budapest Conference focuses on power lines and bird mortality in Europe

Bonn, 20 April 2011 - An international conference on “Power Lines and Bird Mortality in Europe” took place in Budapest, Hungary on 13 April 2011. The meeting aimed to advance dialogue and reach agreement between key stakeholders on the need to address the problem of large-scale bird mortality on power lines at the European level.

“The conference brought together governments, the European Commission, representatives of the energy sector and conservation practitioners – the stakeholders who can make a difference in resolving the issue of bird mortality on power lines in the EU and in pan-European scale” said Sergey Dereliev, AEWA’s Technical Officer, who attended the conference.

Mortality on power lines, especially due to electrocution, is considered one of the main threats for bird species such as Spanish and Eastern Imperial Eagles and others listed on the global Red List of threatened species. Electrocutions can also disrupt electricity supplies, causing economic disruption and requiring costly ‘retrofit’ investments to make power lines safe.

The conference adopted the Budapest Declaration on the mitigation of bird mortality on power lines in Europe which describes a set of actions to lead to the delivery of clear results by 2020.

Amongst others, a poster was presented by the RWE Rhein-Ruhr Netzservice, a German power grid service company, which shows an innovative method of fitting bird protection markings to overhead powerlines from a helicopter. The company has specialized in fitting such preventive “bird reflectors” to high-voltage powerlines and has already successfully installed over 12.000 of these bird-protection markings using a helicopter in Germany.

In late 2010, AEWA and RWE Rhein-Ruhr Netzservice signed a special Cooperation Agreement to support an independent review and the development of guidelines for mitigating and avoiding the conflict between migratory birds and electricity power grids in the African-Eurasian region.



The review and guidelines will give a better understanding of the existing bird-power grid conflict in the AEWA region and will provide a practical overview of the various solutions and guidance available on mitigating and avoiding the electrocution and collision of migratory birds.

The international review is being implemented by a consortium led by Bureau Waardenburg (based in The Netherlands) which is currently reviewing existing information on the conflicts between birds and the electricity grid, concentrating on collisions, electrocutions, disturbance effects and positive influences of power lines. Together with these findings the final report will also present an overview of the issue at a regional level, focusing on conflict hotspots and species at risk as well as identifying and presenting gaps in the knowledge on the extent of bird risks throughout the region.

The review will be based on both published information as well as on information obtained through direct inquiries from AEWA Parties, Range States, GOs and NGOs in more than 130 countries across the African-Eurasian region. In addition to the review, a set of guidelines will be developed on various possible solutions devised for mitigating or avoiding collisions and electrocutions.

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