How Solar Farms Could Help Save Bees & Butterflies
I like to emphasize the importance of the application of technologies. A technology can be wonderful if you implement it in a sensible manner, or that same technology could be terrible if implemented foolishly.
Solarcentury seems to get that. It intends to turn its solar farms into wildlife sanctuaries in which bumblebees, butterflies, and other insects can thrive. This is especially important due to the dwindling bee population. It has already started converting its solar farms into wildlife sanctuaries. However, it recently decided to accommodate bees and butterflies.
Here’s more from the UK solar company:
Seed recently harvested from Habitat Aid’s community of small specialist UK nurseries and growers is ready to be sown at Solarcentury solar parks around the UK. Habitat Aid will supply high quality British native trees, plants, seeds and nest boxes to solar parks developed by Solarcentury in order to improve biodiversity through habitat restoration or new native planting schemes.
Solar parks, often sited in remote areas, can provide safe havens for butterflies, bumblebees and other insects whose populations have dwindled in recent decades due to intensive agriculture and poor land management practices, resulting in significant habitat loss. For example, an estimated 97% of wildflower meadows in the UK have been lost since the 1940s. Solarcentury will develop a Habitat Management Plan for each solar park to ensure seeds, plants and trees are selected and grown in a way that encourages species biodiversity whilst maximising the efficiency of the panels.
Yesterday, the first seeds were harvested and ready to be sown. Pretty exciting.
“At Solarcentury, we are always looking for ways to positively impact the environment. Working with Habitat Aid presents us with an exciting opportunity to improve biodiversity in solar parks, and it complements our new partnership with the Bumblebee Conservation Trust,” said Frans van den Heuvel, CEO of Solarcentury. “So as well as cutting carbon emissions, solar panels are also ideal for nurturing a diversity of flora and fauna because they can provide a greater range of dry and wet and shaded and sunny areas than fields without panels.”
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