Shanghai has set aside a special corridor for migrating birds at its new wind power generator site.

The bird corridor will be five kilometers wide and will run from suburban Fengxian District, Nanhui District, Hengsha Island to Chongming Island at the north end.

Chongming Dongtan Bird Nature Reserve in Shanghai

No windmill generators will be built within the corridor and the corridor will see between 100,000 and 200,000 birds use it daily, says Professor Lu Jianjian of east China Normal University's Estuarine and Coastal Research Department.

The corridor will let the city develop its power capacity without affecting bird life and without damaging natural ecology.

Last year, the city began a scheme to ease its demands for electricity by building a series of wind power generators in suburban Chongming and Nanhui and some along the sea wall at the mouth of the Yangtze River.

The scheme, which is part of China's overall environmental protection strategy, will have a total capacity of 20,000 kilowatts, according to the Shanghai Electric Power Co.

The bird corridor came into being after Lu, member of the city's top advisory body, put forward a proposal to the Shanghai Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

"Building wind power generators is an e-friendly project," Lu said. "However many of the generators will be standing in the flight paths of migrating birds and will destroy living habitats and the environment for some birds."

The Dongtan site in Chongming and the one in Nanhui's Linggang New City run beside the main route taken by birds migrating between Australia and Siberia each spring and autumn.

More than two million birds from more than 60 species will fly by and roost at wetlands in Chongming, Nanhui and other rural areas.

"Erecting wind power generators not only cuts off the birds' natural migratory routes but also leads to fatal accidents if the birds strike the generator blades," Lu said.

Chongming Dongtan Bird Nature Reserve in Shanghai

All About Migrating birds, Chongming Nature Reserve

(Shanghai Daily November 28, 2007)