This article has been translated from Spanish

Social media have already become full-fledged, communication platforms that are widely used both by individuals and institutions. Media outlets are not an exception. Many newspapers, both national and international, use social media to re-disseminate the news they publish daily, receiving a great deal of interaction from their public. Instant updates and interaction with users are two of the great advantages of this type of platform.

Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch… In some of them, audiovisual elements prevail, while others are more about text. This variety of formats makes the platforms very effective when it comes to publishing information.

Millions of news items are uploaded to the cloud every second and users can find all kinds of information. Climate change stories have become more popular in the last decades, as the consequences of human actions on our planet have become more obvious to the public eye.

Instagram

Instagram was born in 2010. Since its creation, it has not stopped evolving and reaching more and more users. Currently there are more than 1 billion active users who use this platform daily. It allows users to post images, or videos, accompanied by a caption. Some years ago, Instagram added a feature to share stories that remain published for 24 hours on a user’s profile. Its great reception among Internet users and its audiovisual functions have managed to garner attention from the media. Instagram seems to provide an opportunity to reach audiences with images, infographics or illustrations.

Many organizations use Instagram to report on climate change. Greenpeace is probably the one with the most followers (3.9 million). On their profile, users can find all kinds of information about climate change. There are many videos and images accompanied by data and information to raise awareness about the problems related to greenhouse gas emissions.

In Spain, many media outlets use their accounts to inform about the problem of greenhouse gas emissions. One example is the profile of the Spanish National Radio and Television corporation, RTVE.

RTVE uses Instagram to share news pieces that have been broadcast, usually accompanied by a brief informative text summarizing the information.

Twitter

On Twitter, users can post short texts about whatever they want. Recently, the platform incorporated a feature to share stories, just like Instagram, although its use is less frequent. Unlike Instagram, this platform allows media outlets to publish short news stories and even just the headlines and insert a link to the information source. It is one of the most used platform, having millions of users and allowing the publication of all kinds of information.

Many emblematic environmental activists use Twitter to inform about the problems that are affecting our planet. Greta Thunberg, the 18-year-old Swedish activist, has more than 5 million followers on her Twitter profile. There, she shares all kinds of information related to greenhouse gases and everything involved related to the problems we are causing as a result of our actions.

On Twitter, many media outlets just have a general profile to report on all kinds of news. But some news outlets have special divisions that focus entirely on environmental issues. A clear example is EFEverde, the environmental information department of Agencia EFE, which is the world’s fourth largest wire service. EFEverde has its own Twitter profile, where the agency shares environmental information daily and has more than 125,000 followers.

Other Spanish outlets specialized on environmental information are Ballena Blanca (with over 12,000 followers on Twitter), Climática (over 19,000) or El Ágora Diario (over 31,000).

In short, social media has been a new way of informing users. The constant ability to update information, as well the possibility to add multimedia elements make it easier for the media to interact with readers and raise awareness on the issues surrounding climate change and environmental destruction.

This article has been translated from Spanish

Only 33 wind turbines of approximately 80 meters in height are needed to supply 38,000 homes with electricity. Currently, the region of Navarra is a national and international leader for both the production and use of renewable energies. There are currently more than 50 wind farms full of windmills producing renewable energy, which produce around 1,089 megawatts of electricity according to reports from regional media.

In 2013, Spain became the first country in the world where wind energy was the main source of electricity generation for a whole year, representing 20.9% of the total production. Within this particular achievement, Navarra represented a really significant share with a large piece of land dedicated to the installation of wind turbines. Wind turbines are devices that transform the kinetic energy of the wind into electrical energy through a completely sustainable process, free of pollutants, free of emissions, inexhaustible, reducing the use of fossil fuels and energy imports and, in addition, with the benefit that it is completely renewable energy.

In 1994, the company Energía Hidroeléctrica de Navarra (EHN), partially owned by the Spanish government, started the large wind farm of El Pardón, which is the oldest and most functional wind farm to date in the region. This installation, today owned by the company Acciona, led to the development of an important commercial sector associated with wind energy in the region, as well as a high level of awareness and information about clean energy powered by wind. Over time, investments within the renewable energy industry have allowed for innovations to be generated within wind turbine farms. The windmills that made up El Perdón in 1994 and looked like giants back then, are of minimal size compared to today’s windmills. In 25 years, the size of the wind turbines has grown from 40 to 120 meters high, and the power of the machines has increased sixfold.

With this level of positive growth within the renewable energy sector in the Navarra region, the regional government has now started a project entitled Plan Energético Navarra Horizonte 2030 (“2030 Energy Plan for Navarra”) or PEN 2030. This plan aims to promote wind energy and to plan a much broader implementation of clean energy. The general goal of the policy is to develop and implement a new comprehensive environmental strategy for Navarra by 2030, and it is in line with European policy recommendations.

More specifically, the Energy Plan for Navarra aims for a goal of 50% renewable energy out of total energy use in the region. In order to meet this goal, Navarra will need to increase its production of clean energy by expanding existing infrastructure or developing new wind farms.

Navarra is not far from achieving these goals, as stated  in 2018 by Manu Ayerdi, the former Navarra vice president for economic development: “In Navarra we have a very favorable ecosystem for the development of the sector, which makes the Comunidad Foral a leading territory in technology for the wind industry.”

“However, we live in a global market and we have to fight all together so that Navarra continues to be a benchmark, getting better and better. For this we have to work and improve relentlessly,” Ayerdi said.

Over the last two decades, the region has shown remarkable growth in terms of sustainability and projects related to environmental care. If the government’s efforts continue to focus on the wind sector, in addition to keeping the population properly informed in terms of data, progress and future projects, it is highly likely that Navarra will even surpass the numbers established for the year 2030.

Transcript

Fashion is such a personal thing. Everyone has their own style, influences and values. But the inescapable truth is that clothing has consequences. From the moment it is woven to the moment it is thrown away, every individual article has a massive global impact. From the water and energy used to produce the clothes to the human labor required, the clothing industry has a dark influence. However, within the last ten years, thrifting has become on trend again. In nearly every downtown, you can find a used clothing store giving life to clothes that may have otherwise been thrown out. Molly Schonert, assistant manager of Rumors Chapel Hill, said that the store avoids throwing clothes out, offering everyone a chance to sell or donate their clothes instead.

Molly Shonert: “We buy from the community. We also do have a section of the store where the items are new that we buy online via wholesale as a way to kind of help people who are hesitant to thrift for their clothes, as a way to kind of open that secondhand gate.”

Even then, Schonert says that managers research brands that the community will be interested in and that have ethical and sustainable practices.

Molly Shonert: “We never really get rid of an item. We do things like grab bags or dollar sales on special occasions, where we take items that haven’t been selling and we offer them for a discounted price. We always kind of use the item. We never just throw it away or anything like that. We’ll give it some worth of life somehow.”

However, not everyone is into buying and reselling. Most consumers still shop for new clothes from department store or outlets.

Candida Settle, manager of the Chico’s outlet store in Mebane, knows the formula for selling clothes and rotating them out depending on the seasons. Based on which items the store is selling well, Settle may be told to discount them or not. Similarly, whenever an item must be removed from inventory, it is sent to corporate and  may be donated for a company write-off.

Candida Settle: “In retail in general, they’re always gonna try to be one season ahead within the fashion aspect of it. So it depends on how quickly the product’s moving, how much product we have within the company, whether they go straight from a temp sale down to markdown. We don’t really resell our damaged products.”

The individual stores are largely left out of decision making. According to Chico’s FAS disclosure, the clothes are made and shipped from nations like China, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, and shipping clothes is a huge source of carbon emissions.

While a single consumer may not be able to change the whole industry overnight, they can start with shopping smarter. The same way one might research when buying a new car or shopping for produce, they should also check the practices and standards of the brands they shop from. Businesses should be held accountable for their decisions because no action is without consequences.

This is Em, Chapel Hill.

This article has been translated from Spanish

Since September 1, 2021, a draft to the Law on Climate Change and Ecological Transition in Navarra has been in process, awaiting approval by the regional parliament.

Despite the ambition of this legal text, it has been described both as insufficient and counterproductive by environmental interest groups such as Alianza por el Clima. They see some of the promises of the bill as problematic. For example, the law proposes that, by 2025, 50% of the electricity consumed by public institutions in the region must be from renewable sources. At first sight, this situation seems desirable from a human point of view. But what about biodiversity?

According to the environmental nonprofit Ecologistas en Acción, more than 8,000 vertebrates have been killed by the blades of wind turbines since the construction of the first wind farm in Navarra, in 1998. This data should draw attention to the fact that the location of farms is an important factor.

One of the main complaints of environmental groups is that wind farms are often located on land where dry cereal crops are grown or in mid-mountain areas. These are areas of less economic value than others, but also home to many birds and other flying animals. Bats, migratory birds and large gliders such as vultures collide with the rigid blades, imperceptible to their senses, and fall dead on the land that was once their home.

Since its  first wind farm in the late 1990s, Navarra has built 50 other wind installations,  becoming an industry pioneer and European leader. But at what price?

Inaccurate studies

The Navarra fund for the protection of the natural environment, Gurelur, accuses the regional government that, behind this attempt to move towards renewable energies lies the industrialization of the few areas of forest that had escaped the wind power plants. However, these studies are not always carried out properly.

According to a study by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the reports that have been used so far in Spain to calculate the environmental impact of these parks have followed erroneous criteria. Since the study began in 2018, the true impact on birds of 20 Spanish wind farms has been analyzed and, comparing the data that were estimated before their construction and the actual number of dead birds, it has been concluded that there is no correlation between the two variables. According to the Spanish national center for scientific research (CSIC), one of the main flaws of the method used so far is that the impact of the wind farm is studied as a whole. This means that twenty turbines that are not located in the same place or at the same distance from each other are subjected to the same estimates. The impact of each wind turbine varies greatly depending on the mountain topography where it is located and the air currents around it, so the CSIC has proposed that the threat that each turbine can generate should be analyzed before it is installed.

Painting turbines black

A different question arises for the wind farms that already occupy Navarra’s territory and are in full operation. Even if companies in charge were obliged to repeat the environmental impact studies of their installations, it would be very difficult for the wind turbines to be moved if the results qualify them as “threatening.”

Four thousand birds of prey, including 94 red kites and 10 Egyptian vultures, are just some of the birds that have died in Navarra due to collisions with wind turbine blades in the last 23 years. It is the seventh leading cause of death for birds, according to Statista.

Perhaps the remedy lies in looking at what other countries have done before. In the last decade, the Norwegian Institute for Nature Conservation has been testing a method to reduce bird deaths from collisions with wind turbines: to paint one of its blades black, making the infrastructure much more noticeable to the birds.

The study showed that bird mortality in farms with painted wind turbines is 72% lower than in those without painted blades. Whether the solution is painting blades or another alternative, some action is necessary for wind and biodiversity to coexist in peace.

This article has been translated from Spanish

During the high Middle Ages in Europe, the bearded vulture (commonly known as quebrantahuesos or “bone breaker,” in Spanish) was known as the griffin or the legendary phoenix. Because of its curious red eyes and orange plumage, it was seen as a symbol of physical and spiritual regeneration, a harbinger of death and suffering.

Today, the population of this once mythical creature, has been declining due to hunting, deforestation and climate change. Now we are a danger to them and not the other way around.

The catalog of vertebrates in Navarra points at 16 species in danger of extinction. Among them, the most relevant birds are the great bustard, the ptarmigan, the bittern and the bearded vulture.

The bearded vulture is a beautiful and large bird of prey of the vulture family. It shares with its siblings the basic particularity of its diet: necrophagy. That is, it feeds on animal carcasses. In particular, bearded vultures are almost exclusively osteophagous, feeding on the bones of the animals they hunt. And if these are too large to ingest, it throws them from the heights to break them into smaller pieces. Hence its common name: quebrantahuesos (“bone breaker”).

Compared to other vultures, the Gypaetus Barbatus has an unmistakable figure: narrow wings, a long tail and a head full of brown or black feathers, depending on its age. It has a wingspan of between 275 and 300 centimeters, and usually weighs between 4.5 and 7 kilograms. Hatchlings and young specimens have a black feathered head that becomes lighter as they grow. In contrast to common vultures, which feature bare heads to be able to eat directly from animal carcasses and not infect their feathers with dirt, bearded vultures do have them since they never come close to dead meat.

These birds also live for a long time, being able to reach 10 or 12 years in perfect condition. Their bodies undergo remarkable changes such as the change from brown iris color to milky white, or its plumage mottled in shades of gray and brown to an orange belly and neck.

These birds have no sexual dimorphism, unlike most other bird species, which makes them difficult to distinguish. In addition, because they are so long-lived and copulate only once a year, they have a long reproductive cycle compared to other winged species and usually lay only one or two eggs. It takes about 120 days from the time the eggs are laid until the chicks leave the nest. Nests are usually composed of two or three adults, usually two males and one female; this is known as polyandrous breeding units.

By giving birth to so few young per family nucleus, it is not unusual that the species has lost density, especially in the Pyrenean area. But that is not the only reason why the bearded vulture is an endangered species in Europe. The main cause of mortality in this species is due to the illegal use of poisoned bait, which seriously compromises its growth and colonization of new areas. Other causes of unnatural death among the bearded vultures are accidents with power lines in mountainous areas or the construction of infrastructures that break with their natural habitat.

However, in the 2019-2020 season, the Autonomous Community of Navarra has broken a record of productivity in the breeding and protection of bearded vultures since at least 1980. Thanks to the Bearded Vulture Recovery Plan in Navarra, seven of the nine territories have been successfully occupied by this species, with the laying of four chicks where they were previously present. This is a great achievement, as the number of Bearded Vultures has increased by 64% since 1984, reaching approximately 1000 individuals. Of these, 34% are breeding individuals, but the number is still increasing every year.

 

This article has been translated from Spanish

The Yesa reservoir was built in the Pyrenees in 1959 and it is located in an area called Prepirineo. The dam is located in Navarra, but the reservoir extends through the community of Aragon, more specifically through the province of Zaragoza. It occupies a total of 2089 hectares and receives water from the dam of the Aragón river. As the Periódico de Aragón coined it in 2004, “the history of Yesa is a story of obstacles.”

The reservoir was created to supply water to different towns and for irrigation. The water accumulated in the reservoir is also used for electricity generation. These same waters have managed to create a total of 81107.64 hectares of irrigated land, most of which is in Aragon. The reservoir supplies the city of Zaragoza and more than 35 municipalities.

Far from its impressive volume, the reservoir is marked by continuous problems that have haunted it from its very first day. The decision alone to locate it where it is currently located caused the flooding of several villages and the eviction of many others, causing more than 1,500 people to leave their homes. Villages such as Ruesta, Tiermas and Escó were abandoned because they were totally flooded or became uninhabitable due to the proximity of the water. It also affected villages upstream, such as Acín de Gacipollera, but this time due to the need to plant a pine forest to prevent the massive dragging of sediments by the rains. Even 2048 hectares of farmland were flooded, a thousand of which were of very good agricultural quality.

The inconveniences continued, as the structure itself has not ceased to give headaches.

 

From the “Yesa no” web page, a group of neighbors and activists assure that the Yesa area is not capable of supporting this kind infrastructure. In fact, the dam has suffered landslides and has had cracks for many years. When all this was already happening, a plan to increase the height of the dam was approved, which ended up outraging those people who were suffering from the dam’s problems.

 

This project was intended to triple the volume of Yesa, but the works have not gone as expected. In June 2021 the following headline was published on the Diario de Noticias website: “The State assures that it will raise Yesa even though it does not even have the safety guarantee it demanded”. Just as a few years earlier they had published another headline related to the reservoir: “A study on Yesa shows that the force supporting the dam is equal to that of a potential collapse”. There was even a “Yesa Case”, where the court ruled in favor of the defendants.

Since the works began, there have been up to three displacements and the cracks have increased. Due to these situations, the towns located beyond the dam have been forced to take preventive measures in the event of a possible rupture of the dam. Sangüesa is one of these municipalities that would be affected by such a big problem as the outflow of water from the reservoir.

Testimonies

Alicia Aisa and Igor Martínez, two neighbors from Aesa, have agreed to answer some questions on this subject.

What was the cause of the problems with the Yesa reservoir? Firstly, these problems were already anounced when the dam was built and the engineer René Petit had wrote that the dam could not be raised. Secondly, the works involve slope movements, which are causing problems such as evictions of a housing development in Yesa due to cracks and landslides on roads and homes.

What problems are those affected by the reservoir dealing with? The eviction of their homes and the imminent danger due to movements of the slopes that would entail the breakdown of the current dam that would depopulate a few municipalities without time to evacuate.

What measures have been put in place by the local and regional institutions? The only measure has been to maintain these slopes that are costing the region four times over what was budgeted at the time to do this work, insisting on finishing something that will not be viable and endangering many people, such as Sangüesa, among many other municipalities.

Would you like to send a message to the institutions? We could stop this work, since it entails more risk than benefit. There is no need to increase the size of the dam.

What is the current problem with the dam? As of today, the works continue without providing any security, evacuation plan, or notification of movements that we can count on to know what situation we are in. Some alarms have been placed in Sangüesa, but the population is unaware of their sound. There is no information about the evacuation plan, and it is well known that there would not be enough time to evacuate. There have even been people who have moved to other towns of Navarra because of fear.

What are the alternatives or solutions to these problems? The solution is to stop the expansion of the dam and stop the ongoing work.

 

Neighbors are angry because this situation is a result of the bad actions of people in power. For this reason, different initiatives have been created against the reservoir and its enlargement and, in the face of the flight forward of the directors of a certain project with the works, demonstrations have taken place to make themselves heard.

The idea of creating a reservoir to supply water for drinking and irrigation in many municipalities and lands initially appealed to all those who were going to benefit from its creation, but it is the disadvantages already mentioned.

Transcription

Eighteen-year-old Kathryn Haenni remembers struggling with allergies since she was young. As a child, Kathryn experienced severe allergic reactions.

Kathryn Haenni: “When I was younger, I could never play outdoor soccer in the spring because had I played soccer with my friends on the team I would, you know, probably be crying midway through because my eyes would be so puffy.”

Kathryn says she experienced her first allergy testing around six years old. Her diagnosis is an allergy to pollen, dust, and other environmental irritants.

Kathryn Haenni: “To be 6-years-old and experience just like, I mean they’re fairly like painful pricks just up and down your back, you know, couple hundred times was definitely a painful experience and borderline traumatic. Having severe symptoms of seasonal allergies is something that dictates your choices. Because the symptoms are so severe, in order to avoid those symptoms, you have to make choices that potentially put you at a disadvantage um, you know, physically or socially or emotionally.”

Pediatric allergist and immunologist Doctor David Peden says weather patterns and our changing climate affect allergies like Kathryn’s.

Dr. Peden: “All of these basically are impacted by climate, you know, by weather and, you know, patterns of weather which we would call climate. So, the warmer the weather is, and in areas where climate change results in more airborne water versus less. And that’s going to vary depending on your region. I think climate change is important because it causes both droughts and floods as it were, so it depends on where you are. Weather and atmospheric conditions and pollution results in, you know, the pollution itself modifies a person’s response to what you’re allergic to.”

Climate change impacts our weather by inducing higher temperatures, increased precipitation, and poor air quality. These effects from climate change may increase the exposure to environmental allergens. Peden uses pollen as an example of the weather’s impact.

Dr Peden: “I think the warmer the Earth is and the longer the pollination seasons are and so if you look at this from the perspective of how do, what do trees, what environmental conditions promote tree pollination: warmer, wet weather in a very general sense is probably beneficial to them, uh, with regards to inducing pollination. The longer the pollen season is, the warmer it is and the wetter the winter is before then: the bigger the bloom of, or the burst of pollen is that there’s going to be.”

Peden says there is a caveat to the increased precipitation when it comes to rain.

Dr. Peden: “Episodic rainstorms can actually be helpful, you know, for a person who has got a lot, uh, significant outdoor allergies.”

The rain washes away the yellow and green pollen that you see on cars and sidewalks. Kathryn says she feels a sense of relief after a rainstorm in the peak pollen season.

Kathryn Haenni: “But my allergies are significantly better after it rains, um. I think that’s largely in part just because literally it washes away allergens in the air. And, I guess that being said if it hasn’t rained in a while and there’s kind of like a buildup of particulate matter, um, that definitely is going to increase my symptoms of allergies just because just there’s more that has accumulated.”

Taking allergy medicine like Claritin or other antihistamines helps to reduce allergy symptoms. Peden says some people may resort to allergy shots to alleviate symptoms in the long term. For people like Kathryn, there’s more to the weather than what meets the eye.

Kathryn Haenni: “That subsequently affects you socially because if you’re not as interested in playing outside with your friends when you’re younger or being active when you’re older with outdoor sports and things like that, um, that definitely affected my quality of life due to the choices that I made to avoid having a flare up in my symptoms.”

That goes to say climate change may be impacting our weather, and us, more than we realize. I’m Meg Hardesty in Chapel Hill.

Coneflowers bloom beneath the panels, and strands of milkweed burst up from the ditches. Looking closely, you might see a monarch butterfly dancing between the pastel-pink flower buds, its orange wings laced with black lines and white dots.

Developers here may have found a way to help sensitive wildlife survive changing climates and habitat loss. To conserve threatened species, environmentalists are beginning to rely on a tool that has a complicated relationship with biodiversity: solar energy.

North Carolina is fourth in the nation in solar power generated, behind California, Texas, and Florida. Proportionally, the state punches above its weight. “The numbers are less about where there’s sun and more about the regulatory and economic environment,” said Liz Kalies, Director of Science for The Nature Conservancy in North Carolina.

From the start, the solar industry in North Carolina boomed. The state allowed utilities to negotiate long-term agreements with solar facilities, guiding a wave of funding towards renewable energy development. In 2017, researchers at North Carolina State University predicted that solar energy could contribute from 5 to 20 percent of North Carolina’s electricity within the next decade, requiring 140,000 acres of land.

Cost of progress

This progress comes at a cost. “Developers are starting to run out of cheap cleared land,” Kalies said.

Solar farms require wide swathes of open space so the sun’s rays can reach the solar arrays. The more sunlight reaching the solar panels, the more energy they produce. That’s a reason companies build dense grids across clear-cut fields.

This flood of technology has serious impacts on local ecosystems. Solar farms can fragment habitat into small, dispersed pieces, cutting nomadic animals off from migration routes. “We actually have data which show that when an animal gets to an area that’s just turf grass, it will stop, turn around, and go back where it came from,” said Gabriela Garrison, a biologist with the N.C. Wildlife Commision.

According to unpublished data from the North Carolina chapter of The Nature Conservancy, the amount of land set aside for deforestation and solar farm construction today nears 10,000 acres. Although that’s a small amount of land, it makes up half the territory reserved for solar farms — a worrying trend, as the industry continues its rapid growth.

Saving threatened species

 Despite its impacts on local wildlife, solar energy offers a unique opportunity for saving threatened species.

If developers install wildlife-friendly fencing around their farms, they can create natural corridors for animals to pass through. Installers can also fill the spaces between and under panels with plants that provide local creatures with food — like milkweed, the sole food source for monarch caterpillars.

Many fields in which developers build solar farms are fallow, meaning they haven’t been cultivated. “These fields don’t produce flowers or have good protein,” said Bryan Tompkins, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The 2015 State Wildlife Action Plan listed 28 insects as Species of Greatest Conservation Need. Developing fallow fields can bring these threatened creatures back from the brink. Working alongside several different solar installers, Tompkins and Garrison began planting native vegetation at industrial solar farms throughout North Carolina. The results have surpassed their expectations.

In a survey conducted by The Nature Conservancy, researchers found a huge difference in insect diversity between traditional solar farms and the experimental sites. Pollinators returned to the test plots, bringing native life back to land that had forgotten it.

“The sad fact is that we’re experiencing declines in most of our pollinator species,” Tompkins said. “We’ve shown that not only is it possible to develop these sites, but if you build it, they’ll come.”

Benefits to other species

 The advantages of planting local vegetation aren’t limited solely to insects. “In the wildlife world, we call this early successional habitat,” said Garrison. “There’s lots of benefit there for ground-nesting birds, herps (reptiles and amphibians), and small mammals.”

 Even regulations imposed by local ordinances offer chances to help wildlife. Required to plant vegetative buffers to limit the visibility of their site, solar producer Birdseye Renewable Energy began working with Tompkins to grow native hedgerows, providing habitat for creatures and cutting costs.

Non-native trees “are good for screening, but only if you can water every other day,” Tompkins said. With native screens, maintenance crews rarely need to mow or water.

Once a solar farm has harvested its last ray of sunshine, usually after about 30 years, developers pack up the panels and dispose of them, leaving behind plants that grew nearby. If developers create native ecosystems around their sites, the land will flourish,  once they’re gone.

The Nature Conservancy’s Kalies analyzes the relationship between solar energy and sensitive wildlife. She said success depends on two factors: Where developers put solar farms and what they do with farms once they’re built.

In a report on siting and design, Kalies wrote that developers should avoid “resilient areas,” spaces where wildlife can retreat from human meddling. The Nature Conservancy has mapped out a network of resilient areas across the United States. Kalies argued that developers should work around these natural communities, placing solar farms in empty fields and industrial sites instead. In this way, developers can recreate and preserve ecosystems rather than tear down ones that already exist. “Don’t make us choose between forests and clean energy,” Kalies wrote.

Kalies said it’s possible to get developers on board with conservation.

“Utilities have a lot of power. We’re trying to target the people who make decisions,” she said.

Despite some victories, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Tompkins said there’s work to do. “I’m proud of what we’ve achieved so far, but there’s so much more ground to cover,” he said. “There are so many more installers to get on our side.” He said with the support of the solar industry, native species may now have a fighting chance.