Campaigners say marshland wildlife is protected by law

Energy minister Malcolm Wicks defended wind power as a way to protect the climate from global warming.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) said the 26-turbine plan approved for Romney Marsh would "destroy landscape".

The CPRE told the BBC's Politics Show there were alternative energy sources.

Speaking on Sunday to BBC South East, spokeswoman Hilary Newport said energy generation could be incorporated into housing developments, that 20,000 tons of wood went to waste each year in Kent, and biofuels could be grown.

"We should be demanding better standards of energy efficiency rather than destroying our landscapes," she added.

Climate change threat

Philip Merricks, from the Romney Marsh Nature Reserve, said the wind farm plan was "an industrial development in breach of European wildlife law".

He said putting a wind farm in the wrong place would "set back the renewable energy cause".

But Keith Taylor, of the Green Party, said that wind turbines could help tackle the "real threat of climate change".

He said: "The Environment Agency has put climate change at the top of the threats to our coastline and Kent is one of the most sensitive counties in the whole country."

Dungeness Power Station is close to the Kent-Sussex border

Malcolm Wicks MP said: "We do need renewable sources of clean energy and wind turbines is one way of doing it.

"It provides heat, electricity, and it helps us to protect our climate from the threat of global warming."

Work to decommission a reactor at Dungeness nuclear power station is set to begin next year, but workers at the plant have said renewable sources cannot replace it.

Spokesman Graham Finn said: "You would need a lot of wind turbines - you would need to cover virtually all of Kent.

"We don't see wind power as the answer for replacing nuclear sources.

"What we do see is a balanced energy market, with nuclear, wind and other renewables."