Chongón-Posorja Transmission Line: Advancing Bird-Friendly energy infraestructure

Very often, in cities, rural areas, and along roads, we see birds perched on power lines. For many people, this image is part of the everyday landscape: a bird resting on a power line, or small groups resting on poles and structures. But what appears to be a common scene from the ground is, from the air, part of a much more complex relationship between infrastructure, territory, and wildlife. 

Electric grids connect cities, ports, industries, homes, and essential services. But a transmission line isn’t simply plotted on a blank map: it crosses living territories where communities, ecosystems, and species that depend on the landscape’s connectivity coexist. For millions of birds, these landscapes include habitats, foraging areas, resting areas, nesting sites, and flight paths to completing their life cycles. Therefore, every new line not only defines a route for energy but also raises a decision about how to integrate development with the surrounding ecosystems. When not properly planned, designed, or managed, this infrastructure can disrupt that connectivity and increase risks to wildlife, especially birds. 

This coexistence will become increasingly important. In the 1950s, Latin America and the Caribbean was home to around 160 million people, most of whom lived in rural areas. Today, the region has more than 660 million inhabitants, and over 80% of them live in cities. In just a few decades, the region not only grew; it also transformed the way it produces, moves, trades, and consumes energy. 

This transformation has placed growing pressure on power systems and helps explain why regional electricity demand is expected to continue rising in the decades ahead. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), demand could increase by nearly 90% by 2050 under current policies, and by as much as 180% if announced climate pledges are met, driven by the electrification of transport, industry, and other key sectors of the energy transition. 

Responding to this increase will not depend only on producing more electricity, but on having networks capable of delivering it safely, reliably, and efficiently to where it is needed. But as this infrastructure becomes increasingly critical to regional development, there is also a growing need to design it with greater attention to the territories it crosses. For birds, this perspective is especially important because power lines can become a barrier or a threat within landscapes that many species use to move, feed, rest, or reproduce. 

For birds, the most direct risks associated with power lines are usually electrocution and collision. Electrocution occurs mainly when a bird comes into contact with energized components; collision occurs when wires or structures intersect with its flight paths. But the level of risk is not the same in every case: it depends on the design of the line, the landscape it crosses, the species present, and how birds move through that territory. 

Even seemingly simple factors can increase vulnerability. On rainy days, for example, wet plumage can increase the risk of electrocution because water facilitates electrical conductivity. Similarly, in areas where some species move at night, the low visibility of infrastructure can increase the risk of collision, especially when lines or structures are not easily detectable in low-light conditions. These kinds of details remind us that prevention cannot rely on generic solutions: it must respond to the local context, the species present, and the specific conditions of each site. 

The scale of the challenge is made clear in a recent report on power lines and wildlife by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Although Latin America and the Caribbean still lack a consolidated regional estimate, the report presents figures that help illustrate the scale of the problem: in the United States alone, collisions with power lines could cause between eight and 57 million bird deaths each year, while electrocution could account for up to 64 million. These figures should not be directly extrapolated to the region, but they do show why prevention from the planning and design stages is key. 

Chongón–Posorja: Strategic Infrastructure in a Vital Corridor 

In Latin America, this kind of prevention is beginning to take shape in concrete projects. One of them is located on Ecuador’s southwestern coast: the Lago de Chongón–Posorja Transmission Line. The project is part of an investment of approximately USD 200 million led by the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) and the Ecuadorian Electricity Corporation (CELEC), the public company responsible for power generation and transmission in the country. 

Its purpose is to connect hydropower generation with shrimp farming complexes along Ecuador’s coast, reducing dependence on fossil fuels and contributing to the country’s energy security. As with other renewable energy projects, including wind and solar, the challenge does not end with generating cleaner energy. It also involves building networks capable of transmitting that energy while reducing, from the design stage, their impacts on the surrounding environment and ecosystems. 

This is where science, conservation, and finance converge around a concrete proposal: the Americas Flyways Initiative (AFI). Led by Audubon, BirdLife International, and CAF, the initiative works at the intersection of conservation, applied science, and finance to protect the continent’s migratory corridors. In Chongón–Posorja, this approach translates into concrete action: incorporating bird-friendly and bird-safe criteria along the line’s 69-kilometre route. 

In this area, the technical analysis developed by AFI for the project identified a remarkable richness of birdlife: 382 recorded species, including 56 migratory species and 30 AFI focal species, mainly long-distance migratory shorebirds. The analysis also identified 63 species with medium to high collision risk, including the Great Green Macaw (Ara ambiguus) and the Grey-cheeked Parakeet (Brotogeris pyrrhopterus). 

AFI’s contribution goes beyond a one-off recommendation. With the support of Aves y Conservación, BirdLife’s partner in Ecuador, the initiative combined technical review, geospatial analysis, and biodiversity information to identify potential risks to birds and guide measures from the project design stage. This work made it possible to develop recommendations aligned with the mitigation hierarchy and CAF’s Biodiversity Safeguard, ranging from the installation of flight diverters — or bird diverters — to systematic collision monitoring and adaptive adjustments based on scientific evidence. 

The sensitivity of the area explains why this approach is especially relevant. According to the analysis conducted, the route passes approximately one kilometre from the Parque Lago National Recreation Area and two strategic Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs): Cordillera Chongón-Colonche and Cerro Blanco; and Mangroves, Estuaries, Wetlands and Forests of the Gulf of Guayaquil. Together, these landscapes form an ecological corridor of high importance for migratory birds. 

This experience also draws on elements from the Bird-Friendly Infrastructure Guide developed by AFI. In this sense, Chongón–Posorja serves as a concrete test case for implementation: a way to move from theory to practice by applying science to advance conservation within a national-scale energy project. 

At AFI, we promote the application of the mitigation hierarchy, which is based on a simple principle: before thinking about how to offset a project’s impacts, we must first ask how to avoid or reduce them from the design stage. 

In energy projects, this means assessing from the outset whether alternative locations or routes could reduce risks to birds and biodiversity. Tools such as AVISTEP, developed by BirdLife International, help identify the most sensitive areas for birds and guide the expansion of power grids in a way that is more compatible with nature. 

In other words, incorporating biodiversity from the planning stage makes it possible to develop more sustainable infrastructure, while reducing environmental risks, future costs, and potential conflicts. 

From Monitoring to Implementation  

Designing a transmission line with bird-friendly criteria is only the first step. To know whether these measures are working, it is necessary to observe what happens on the ground once the infrastructure begins to be built and operated. Monitoring makes it possible to identify critical points, understand how birds move through and interact with the landscape, assess whether the measures are effective, and adjust decisions based on evidence. 

In a region where data on interactions between power lines and birdlife remain limited, every well-documented project can contribute useful knowledge to improve the planning of future infrastructure. This is where much of the value of the Chongón–Posorja project lies: not only in reducing risks along a specific line, but also in generating lessons, tools, and evidence so that bird-friendly criteria can be progressively incorporated into future investments in energy infrastructure. 
 
In fact, the experience is already generating interest in replicating this approach on new transmission lines in Ecuador, demonstrating how the integration of science and biodiversity can evolve from a pilot project into a scalable model of sustainable development. 

This vision responds to one of the central challenges of our time: developing the infrastructure that Latin America and the Caribbean need to grow, without sacrificing the ecosystems on which their future depends. With a USD 40 billion commitment over the next five years focused on sustainable growth and climate action, including a just energy transition and the conservation of strategic ecosystems, CAF is advancing an agenda in which infrastructure not only connects territories but can also help protect them. 

Latin America will need more and better energy infrastructure. The question is not whether power grids should expand, but how they should do so. Each new transmission line can strengthen supply security, connect territories, and support economic development. But it can also do so in a way that is more compatible with biodiversity, incorporating measures from the design stage to reduce risks to birds and other components of ecosystems. 

Bird-friendly energy infrastructure offers a smarter way to respond to this challenge. It does not seek to halt development, but to improve the decisions behind it: planning better, avoiding sensitive areas, designing with biodiversity criteria, monitoring impacts, and adjusting measures based on evidence. 

Through the Lago de Chongón–Posorja Transmission Line, AFI is helping show that this approach can move from recommendation to practice. It also shows that the energy future of the Americas can be built sustainably: expanding access to reliable energy while protecting the natural corridors that sustain life across the continent.