AUSTRIAN environmentalists are trying to stop an AC/DC concert from going ahead in the city of Wels as they say it will put rare birds and plants at risk.

WWF Austria has written a letter to the veteran rockers begging them to find a new venue for their concert in May, for which 80,000 tickets have been sold.

Bernhard Kohler from WWF said it was not the concert itself that was the problem, but the venue: an old airstrip that was the last remnant of formerly widespread natural grasslands in the region.

Mr Kohler said the city administration of Wels had long wanted to redevelop the site as a residential and industrial area but was thwarted by the threatened bird species - 200 pairs of ground-nesting meadowlarks and up to 10 breeding pairs of the Eurasian curlew.

"The politicians are playing a rather dirty game," he said. "They hope that after they have destroyed the area it will be easier for them to move forward with their development plans."