Cyprus’s Environment Department has rejected an application to build and operate a 5 MW solar park in the Municipality of Aradippou. A Special Ecological Assessment report backs the Ad-hoc Committee’s negative opinion, concluding that the project’s environmental impacts would be significant, negative and irreversible.
The source does not name the company behind the application.
The Department said the rejection would prevent further ecological degradation of the area.
The assessment found that building and operating the proposed park would have significant, negative and irreversible effects on the Koshi–Pallourokampos Special Protection Area, mainly through disturbance and habitat loss affecting species covered by the reserve’s conservation targets. The project would directly affect species with a significant presence in the reserve, including the permanent loss and fragmentation of breeding, foraging and resting areas, the disturbance and displacement of species using the site, and changes to conditions favourable for breeding, along with a possible loss of nesting habitat for the long-legged buzzard (Buteo rufinus).
The project would also cause indirect and synergistic impacts on bird species covered by the reserve’s conservation targets, mainly through increased disturbance from the expansion of the road network and the Electricity Authority of Cyprus’s power transmission and distribution network. As a result, the Department concluded that construction of the proposed project could not be approved.
The main reason for the rejection is the proposed site’s direct proximity to the Special Protection Area. Ecological surveys recorded 55 bird species in the area, nine of them strictly protected birds under the EU Birds Directive. Negative impacts are expected on two birds of prey, the long-legged buzzard and Bonelli’s eagle (Aquila fasciata). The long-legged buzzard faces a direct risk of nest abandonment from noise and disturbance, while the Bonelli’s eagle faces reduced prey availability and the risk of colliding with the Electricity Authority of Cyprus’s overhead power lines.
