About the Author
Michael Wahl has dedicated more than 30 years to advancing high-voltage infrastructure and ecological corridor management. After joining Westnetz in 1987, he steadily progressed to become Head of the “Operation of HV Overhead Lines” department, a position he held until 2021. From 2021 to 2023, he led the Ecological Corridor Management (ECM) rollout at E.ON as Project Manager, coordinating efforts across 15 distribution system operators (DSOs) in Europe. By 2029, the entire E.ON Group will be managing almost 70,000 hectares of green corridors and overseeing an investment of over €40 million as part of this transformation. Today, Michael continues to champion ECM across the energy sector through consulting, public speaking, and close collaboration with industry stakeholders. He also shares insights and practical knowledge through a series of blog posts aimed at supporting a more sustainable and biodiversity-friendly approach to corridor management.
High-voltage overhead power lines run through public spaces, crossing landscapes that involve a wide array of stakeholders.
As such, any corridor maintenance work by a DSO or TSO inevitably affects the people whose land or interests lie beneath the infrastructure. The first point of contact is typically the landowners or tenants whose properties are directly impacted.
Experience shows that these stakeholders, whether private landowners, foresters, farmers, associations, or NGOs, often have a deep interest in how “their” section of the corridor is managed.
Many are intimately familiar with the vegetation and past maintenance activities in their area, often due to previous disputes or sensitive coordination with grid operators.
As a result, they are emotionally invested and highly observant participants in the process.
But ECM is not only about community sentiment. Legal regulations also shape how corridor management must be carried out. Legislation grants grid operators the right to trim or remove vegetation to prevent outages.
In most cases, this permits clearance only to the minimum safety distances from live conductors, typically 3 to 5 meters depending on voltage level.
This is where ecological planning can make a meaningful difference. A scientifically grounded management plan, developed by biologists and aligned with the expectations of landowners and broader society, forms a critical foundation for successful ECM.
Early, inclusive planning enables ecological goals to be integrated from the outset, while still safeguarding infrastructure reliability.
Community Involvement and Their Challenges
Successful ecological corridor management depends not only on technical execution but also on the engagement and support of local communities. Powerline corridors cross lands that are not just mapped and measured, they are known, valued, and often closely monitored by those who live and work there.
For ECM to succeed, interventions must be carried out proactively, well before visible risks emerge.
This forward-looking approach often raises skepticism, especially among critical stakeholders such as landowners, municipal representatives, and even some DSO/TSO teams.
If there is no immediate threat to the line, why take action? This is where misunderstandings arise.
To overcome this challenge, it is essential to bridge three perspectives:
- Local knowledge and stewardship,
- Operational requirements of the grid operator, and
- Ecological science and development goals.
When these perspectives are integrated and respected, ECM projects can move forward smoothly. The following principles have proven essential for building trust and collaboration:
Transparency Builds Trust
Clear, honest communication with landowners, municipalities, NGOs, and other stakeholders establishes the foundation for long-term cooperation. Transparency around planning goals, timelines, and ecological objectives removes ambiguity and helps pre-empt resistance.
Early Involvement in Planning
Involving stakeholders from the start ensures that critical information, such as the current biological value or protected status of a corridor segment, is captured in the planning phase. This avoids conflicts later and improves the ecological design of the intervention.
Multilateral Exchange Enables Adaptation
Shared understanding and active cooperation between all parties lead to more adaptive and effective conservation strategies. This multilateral input allows the plan to reflect both ecological goals and local realities, enhancing the corridor’s value for biodiversity and connectivity.
Capacity Building Through Ongoing Collaboration
Implementing ECM is a process that requires continuous dialogue and learning. Through hands-on collaboration, participants develop shared knowledge about land management and biodiversity monitoring. This is true “training on the job”, benefiting both professionals and communities.
Communities as Long-Term Stewards
For ECM to endure beyond project cycles or funding windows, there must be a sense of ownership at the community level. Building a stewardship model ensures that corridor care continues sustainably, guided by local knowledge, commitment, and pride.
Measure and Celebrate Successes Together with the Community
To build lasting support for ECM, it's essential to track ecological outcomes over time and share them with local stakeholders. Monitoring the corridor’s development 3–5 years after implementation provides an opportunity to reflect, learn, and celebrate shared progress.
Joint Inspections with Scientific Support
Where possible, organize site visits with representatives from the utility, local stakeholders, and independent ecological experts, such as biologists, conservation NGOs, or university researchers. These experts can help identify ecological improvements that might go unnoticed by the untrained eye.
Before-and-after comparisons using photos, maps, or community scorecards help illustrate how the corridor has changed since ECM began. Two levels of assessment can be especially useful:
A. Visual Assessment of Vegetation Structure
Compare the corridor’s overall appearance and structural diversity before and after ECM interventions:
- Have high-risk trees under or near conductors been significantly reduced?
- Has the forest composition shifted from fast-growing species to slower, more stable ones?
- Are diverse, coppiced shrub layers or hedgerows developing?
- Have open areas and vegetated “stepping stones” been preserved?
- Have linear pathways been created to support biotope connectivity?
B. Scientific Observation of Flora and Fauna
Supported by biologists, assess ecological indicators at the ground level:
- Is vegetation evolving toward the ECM plan’s defined development goals?
- Are current maintenance measures aligned with those goals, or deviating from them?
Track key habitat types and species counts to document measurable biodiversity gains:
- Dry grasslands and meadow stands
- Wetlands
- Deadwood habitats (standing and fallen)
- Species richness in flora and fauna
Why It Matters
These shared observations not only validate the success of ECM measures but also build a sense of collective ownership. When stakeholders can see positive change in the landscape, and know they played a part, it strengthens community buy-in and sets the stage for long-term collaboration.
Further Political Steps
To scale ECM beyond pilot projects, local successes must be shared across regions and borders. Lessons learned can support implementation in new areas, provided the right political and public visibility is achieved.
Utilities should publish outcomes, improved line safety, increased biodiversity, through events, print, and social media. The main drivers of ECM adoption must be credible and visible advocates.
Long-term political support is most effective when built from the bottom up, starting at the local level and extending to national and international decision-makers.
Given the transnational nature of powerline corridors, ECM offers a unique chance to support biotope connectivity across borders. To seize this opportunity, government involvement is essential.
The Role of Policy, the Instruments and Incentives
Once society or politics, at any level, recognizes the added value of ECM, grid operators must take further transparent steps to advance implementation.
Leveraging official funding programs is crucial, as they both enhance public acceptance and help finance ECM projects.
For many TSOs and DSOs, government-backed grants have become essential tools in ECM project financing.
These include internationally recognized programs such as UNESCO’s biological conservation initiatives, the EU LIFE program, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), and national frameworks like Germany’s Federal Programme for Biological Diversity.
For large-scale, cross-regional ECM projects, it is essential to document the current state before implementing any initial measures. Furthermore, the development goal, the primary reason for funding these programs, and the necessary development measures must be clearly defined in the program description.
Only then will the subsequent results be easier to understand and, indeed, to validate.
Additionally, in large utilities, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is gaining relevance.
By including concrete indicators, such as the rate of biodiversity or species growth, in their sustainability reporting, companies can significantly improve their environmental ratings and public image.
Challenges and the Role of Stakeholders
One of the most pressing open questions in ECM today is how to make the transition to ecologically valuable corridors economically viable for all stakeholders, especially landowners, grid operators, and local partners.
This remains an urgent task for policymakers. But before concrete solutions can be proposed, standardized ECM guidelines, ideally on a national or international level, must be developed to provide a common framework.
Progress has begun. In recent years, the international environmental NGO Renewables Grid Initiative (RGI) has emerged as a key facilitator for ECM and Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM).
RGI is working toward a unified approach to the planning, execution, and monitoring of modern overhead line corridors, laying the groundwork for broader adoption and political traction.
Summary
Successfully transforming powerline corridors into ecologically valuable spaces depends on a few core conditions:
- Stakeholder commitment to nature conservation, even when it requires up-front investment and long-term effort
- Political will to create clear frameworks, including supportive regulations and, if needed, binding legislation
- Financial incentives to reward grid operators, such as reduced network fees or access to funding programs
- And above all, the people, those who have been involved from the very beginning, bringing dedication, expertise, and resilience to every phase of the ECM journey
It is this combination of structured support and passionate participation that ultimately determines whether ECM can become a lasting standard, not only for powerline safety, but for biodiversity, climate resilience, and community engagement.
About the Author
Michael Wahl has dedicated more than 30 years to advancing high-voltage infrastructure and ecological corridor management. After joining Westnetz in 1987, he steadily progressed to become Head of the “Operation of HV Overhead Lines” department, a position he held until 2021. From 2021 to 2023, he led the Ecological Corridor Management (ECM) rollout at E.ON as Project Manager, coordinating efforts across 15 distribution system operators (DSOs) in Europe. By 2029, the entire E.ON Group will be managing almost 70,000 hectares of green corridors and overseeing an investment of over €40 million as part of this transformation. Today, Michael continues to champion ECM across the energy sector through consulting, public speaking, and close collaboration with industry stakeholders. He also shares insights and practical knowledge through a series of blog posts aimed at supporting a more sustainable and biodiversity-friendly approach to corridor management.
