Review ESIA Wind power - Lebanon

15 July 2019

On request by the Lebanese Ministry of Environment, the NCEA reviewed the ESIA for one of the first wind farm projects in Lebanon. For this review, the NCEA’s working group visited Lebanon in June and met with various stakeholders.

According to the NCEA, the ESIA provides a lot of relevant and in-depth information, but important shortcomings remain. For example concerning impacts on vulnerable bird and bat populations and their mitigation measures and monitoring plans:

• The intended project area is part of the main flyway of soaring birds that migrate between Eurasia and Africa. It is unclear whether the results of the bird collision model reflect a worse-case scenario.
• As bat surveys are still ongoing, the negative impact on their population is still unknown.

Therefore the NCEA recommends to first collect additional information before the project start its operations.