Fact: If you want to build a factory
One is obliged to have the knowledge required to fulfill the law’s requirements regarding the relationship with animals and nature.
Different environments are different in complexity. For example, if you want to build on a gravel parking lot, there aren’t that many animals to take into account.
If you want to build in a natural environment, questions will come. What species are there? What function does the area have for different plants and animals (e.g. mating area)? What do you need to do to gain sufficient knowledge? Inventory?
In the next step, there will be more questions from the county administrative board. How are the animals affected by the construction and the planned activities? What can be done to minimize the impact? Is it possible to make adjustments, in time or space?
Moving animals is a last resort, which is rarely used.
In other cases, it will be necessary to adapt the operation to the animals.
If no acceptable solution is found, the construction plans can be stopped.
Source: County Administrative Board in Västra Götaland
Every morning, a biologist walks around the humid forest area at Hisingen and collects amphibians. They have been on their way to some pond for mating, but were stopped by a plastic screen and during the night ended up in one of the buckets dug in for collection.
The animals are placed in moist cloth bags, each species separately. They are released later that morning, just a few kilometers away, in an area where 14 new different ponds have been built for the amphibians to thrive in different weather conditions.
The forest where the animals have lived until now is inside the Volvo Cars area in Torslanda. It is already surrounded by paved surfaces in a large industrial area that began to be built in the 1960s.
Blackbird and noise
It is quiet and peaceful inside the rather untouched natural area. But the blackbird’s song gets competition from sounds from transport, at different distances.
Now most of the forest will make way for Northvolt’s battery factory, is the plan. The idea is for construction to begin this fall. The Land and Environmental Court is about to take a decision on the building permit.
In preparation, Northvolt and Volvo applied to move all the frogs and reptiles, so that they are not harmed. The county board said yes.
But moving animals is a last resort. You are not normally allowed to do that.
“Not all purposes are acceptable for a dispensation,” says Martin Goblirsch, nature conservation officer at the county administrative board in Västra Götaland.
EU Directive
However, production of batteries for electric cars, within the territory of a car company, met the requirements.
“If it hadn’t been such a socially important activity, the county administrative board would not have approved changing the landscape unfavorably for species included in the EU’s species and habitats directive,” says Claes Andrén, retired professor of conservation biology and now consultant in frog and reptile migration .
Field frogs and greater newts are included in the EU directives. They are common species in Sweden, and are also found in the forest near Volvo.
Claes Andrén holds up a field frog.
But as many as possible of all amphibians and reptiles must be moved. Common frog, field frog, edible frog and common toad are some of the species, as well as larger and smaller water salamanders.
They started last year, when 3,500 amphibians were collected. Two-thirds were salamanders, most of the smaller species.
The project continues this year. Now it’s young amphibians, ones that weren’t sexually mature last year, that end up in the pleasantly leaf-decorated buckets. The best chance to collect amphibians is when they are on their way to ponds to mate.
Several hundred reptiles were also moved last year, mainly snakes and various lizards.
Allowed to cost
The collection is low-tech, but requires work.
— It costs a lot. But it has to do, says Christian Jebsen, communications manager for the construction of the battery factory.
The new facility in Torslanda has been estimated to provide around 3,000 new jobs.
A similar move of animals is being made outside Mariestad, where truck manufacturer AB Volvo plans to build a battery factory. More than 10,000 salamanders have been found there in one month. There are significantly more than expected, reports Science Radio.
Edible frog is one of all amphibian species collected and moved at Volvo. It is normally found in southwestern Scania, but has been put out in a couple of places in Gothenburg a long time ago. Despite the species name, you must not eat it. All amphibians are protected.