Environment

The Shetland environment is a rare and precious thing. We should not create permanent or lasting damage to our environment just because we might be able to make money from it.

Sustainable Shetland is very concerned with:

Loss of cultural heritage landscape. The site will be visible across much of Shetland. From nearly from one end of the islands to the other. At night the site will more resemble airport runways than rural hills.

Lost and damaged habitats. Plant, animal and bird and fish species within and beyond the site negatively impacted.

Peat is a carbon sink. It takes thousands of years to form, it acts as a carbon sink, storing and absorbing climate damaging CO2. Damaging peat on this scale releases large quantities of CO2. It is madness to damage ancient peat deposits for a so-called environmental project.

Project will create an adverse impact on the landscape of almost all of Shetland. A generation will grow up knowing nothing else than hilltops covered in wind turbines.

We believe the Viking Energy wind power scheme will cause substantial damage on the immediate and surrounding environment. Access roads, quarries, construction and ongoing site infrastructure such as control and sub-stations, a converter station, turbine foundations and towers will all impact adversely on our landscape, hydrology, ecology, the civic and cultural amenity of the area. We are not convinced by sweeping statements that these adverse impacts will be temporary. We do not consider 25 years to be temporary. We do not believe that the undeveloped areas of Shetland should be treated as mere commodities.