Eco Hvar

ECO HVAR: AIMS AND ACTIVITIES OF THE CHARITY

Environment

Eco Hvar's aims for environmental protection, and related articles.

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Health

Eco Hvar's ideas for encouraging positive health, plus related articles

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Animals

Eco Hvar's aims for protecting animals and improving animal welfare, plus related articles

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Welcome to the Eco-Hvar website

Welcome to the Eco-Hvar website!

Hvar Island on the Dalmatian coast in Croatia is one of the most beautiful places in the world. It has the makings of a paradise on earth. Islanders have long boasted of the clean air and sea, the pristine natural environment and the healthy lifestyle based on a good diet and outdoor living.

Clear sea in Hvar harbour, July 2014. Photo: Vivian Grisogono

Tourism is the island’s main economic activity. Hvar Town established the first professional tourist organization in Europe when the Hvar Health Society (Higijeničko društvo Hvar) was founded way back in 1868 under the leadership of Bishop Juraj Duboković. The Society’s aim was to attract guests to Hvar Town who could benefit from the climate, especially the mild winter, and the clean air. These ‘health tourists’ were well looked after by all accounts, with good food and healthy activities. They provided the foundation for Hvar’s enduring successful tourist industry.

The style of tourism has changed over the years. The basis of Hvar Island’s attractions remains the same. Many people still come to visit or stay here in order to enjoy the clean air, sea and countryside. No-one is disappointed in the natural beauty of the place. There are also other attractions, including the island's rich and colourful history and cultural heritage, not to mention the good food and high quality wines.

However, the island is not perfect. Certain aspects could and should be changed. There is a surprisingly high incidence of smoking- and diet-related illnesses on the island, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and lung problems. The doctors also have to deal with thyroid and hormonal disturbances, especially in young girls, and cancers in all age groups. The indications are that islanders need a better understanding of healthy lifestyle habits, also a clearer knowledge of the downside of using chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

For animal-lovers, the treatment of animals also gives cause for concern. There is no animal rescue facility on the island,  and refuges for dogs and cats are urgently needed so proper care can be provided for homeless animals.

The registered not-for-profit charity Eco Hvar was founded in 2013 to help improve conditions for people, animals and the environment. You can read details of the charity's aims in each category on these links: Environment, Health, Animals. The overall ideal aim is to create a true earthly paradise on the exquisite Island of Hvar.

 

Eco Hvar is pleased to co-operate with like-minded organizations, and is a member of PAN Europe, and LAG Škoji, and a supporter of Zemljane staze - Earth Trek (Facebook page), Održivi otok ('Sustainable Island') (Facebook page), Dignitea (Facebook page) and Pokret otoka ('Island Movement')..

For comprehensive research and strategies for environmental protection, we follow and strongly recommend The Nature-based Solutions Initiative, which operates from the UK University of Oxford Departments of Biology and Geography.

The Eco-Hvar website contains original articles, information, references and links in keeping with the aims of Eco Hvar. All the material on the website is copyright, including the illustrations and photographs, and may not be reproduced or published in any form except with the copyright holders' written permission. However, you are welcome to copy or print out any of the articles for personal use only. For day-by-day topics of interest in keeping with Eco Hvar's aims, you can follow us on Facebook.

 

 

Media

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Eco Environment News feeds

  • Tory hopeful for London mayor joins anti-Ulez Facebook group rife with Islamophobia

    Susan Hall became member a day after an exposé about its contents – much of which is directed at Sadiq Khan

    Susan Hall, the Tory candidate for London mayor, has joined a Facebook group which contains Islamophobic hate speech and abusive comments about her opponent Sadiq Khan, the day after an exposé about its contents.

    Khan told the Guardian these revelations “could have a direct impact on not just my safety but the safety of my family and staff”.

    A YouTube video alleging that “Islamists” were “taking over Britain”.

    Abuse towards Khan, including a post that read: “Seriously can’t believe Khan hasn’t been taken out yet … if dark forces can take out Princess Diana I’m sure they can take out this money grabbing little parasite”.

    Examples of vandalism: one user shared a photo of an enforcement van with its tyres slashed, noting “two flat tyres and sprayed camera”. Another user responded: “Well done to whoever that was”.

    Numerous Islamophobic comments, including one commenter calling Khan a “terrorist sympathiser”, and another saying that the London mayor “will see a big upsurge in public feelings and possibly major riots, mosques burnt down and innocent Muslims unable to walk the streets”.

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  • ‘It’s pretty gloomy out there’: new NFU chief Tom Bradshaw fights to give food producers a better deal

    Rishi Sunak claimed to have farmers’ backs but their union’s president is far from convinced, as he spars with the government over floods, falling markets and fraught retailer relations

    ‘This is the first time I’ve had my lawn cut by somebody else,” says Tom Bradshaw, the new president of the National Farmers’ Union. Just over a month after being voted into the role, he admits life has become “hectic”.

    He is standing outside the idyllic farmhouse in rural Essex where he has lived since he was six, and the garden is all perfect flower beds and newly manicured grass. Nothing here looks hectic, but Bradshaw really is a busy man.

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  • All we wanted was to protect the River Wye from pollution. Now we’re stuck in a catch-22 | Oliver Bullough

    To protect our local river we had to prove it was being used for swimming. But that, bizarrely, is the reason we were rejected

    The state of Britain’s rivers is incredibly depressing: the water companies dump too much sewage, the farmers dump too much muck, and the regulators are too cowed and underfunded to do their job and stop them.

    It wasn’t always this way. As a child I used to swim in the River Wye and I remember the clouds of mayflies in the summer, as well as huge leaping salmon. It was thanks to this wealth of wildlife that the Wye was classified as a special area of conservation along its whole length. Sadly, however, thanks to the failure of the Welsh and British governments to protect the river, much of this abundance is gone, and the Wye’s official status is now “unfavourable – declining”, thanks to pollution from manure and sewage.

    Oliver Bullough is the author of Butler to the World: How Britain Became the Servant of Tycoons, Tax Dodgers, Kleptocrats and Criminals

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  • Rapidly rising levels of TFA ‘forever chemical’ alarm experts

    Trifluoroacetic acid found in drinking water and rain is thought to damage fertility and child development

    Rapidly rising levels of TFA, a class of “forever chemical” thought to damage fertility and child development, are being found in drinking water, blood and rain, causing alarm among experts.

    TFA, or trifluoroacetic acid, is a type of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS), a group of human-made chemicals used widely in consumer products that do not break down for thousands of years. Many of the substances have been linked to negative effects on human health.

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  • Blue-green algae get a bad press – but we owe a debt of gratitude

    While some cyanobacteria are among the deadliest organisms in the world, others help us flourish

    Blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, come in many forms and have generally got a bad press, mainly because five of the 2,000 identified species can produce some of the deadliest toxins known to science.

    At the same time, they are among the oldest organisms in the world, dating back 2.1bn years, and we owe them a debt of gratitude.

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  • Great Barrier Reef’s worst bleaching leaves giant coral graveyard: ‘It looks as if it has been carpet bombed’

    Scientists stunned by scale of destruction after summer of storm surges, cyclones and floods

    Beneath the turquoise waters off Heron Island lies a huge, brain-shaped Porites coral that, in health, would be a rude shade of purplish-brown. Today that coral outcrop, or bommie, shines snow white.

    Prof Terry Hughes, a coral bleaching expert at James Cook University, estimates this living boulder is at least 300 years old.

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  • Fewer wildfires, great biodiversity: what is the secret to the success of Mexico’s forests?

    More than half of the country’s forestry is in community and Indigenous hands – and from CO2absorption to reducing poverty the results are impressive

    Dexter Melchor Matías works in the Zapotec Indigenous town of Ixtlán de Juárez, about 1,600ft (490 metres) above the wide Oaxaca valley in Mexico, where community forestry has become a way of life. Like him, about 10 million people across the country live in and make a living from forests, with half of that population identifying as Indigenous.

    As average temperatures soar around the world and wildfires rage across the Americas, in Mexico, where more than a quarter of the country suffers from drought, the number of wildfires has remained steady since 2012.

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  • After 25 years, logging and bushfires, a greater glider has been spotted in Deongwar state forest

    Native forest logging will cease in south-east Queensland this year – but how long will it take forests to recover?

    It’s just after 8pm when Jess Lovegrove-Walsh, walking down a pitch-black fire trail through bushland about 100km west of Brisbane, trains her spotlight on a pair of laser-red eyes deep in the canopy.

    “That’s a big long tail, it’s either a possum or a glider,” she yells, as a fellow ecologist from the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, Paul Revie, runs ahead with his camera.

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  • The world is on fire – and the NBA wants to be part of the solution

    League is in unique position to help with climate crisis, setting ambitious goal for a 50% drop in its carbon footprint by 2030

    From a climate perspective, the world is in peril. It’s undeniable at this point. Today, though, there are organizations working to find solutions. But when it comes to the universe of pro sports, which has long been a source of pollution like other big businesses, where can answers be found? That’s the question those within leagues like the National Basketball Association are debating now. While the NBA has its own challenges when it comes to air travel and its carbon footprint, the league is also progressing forward with substantive changes, small and large, to assuage the climate crisis. And it’s in a unique position to do just that.

    Unlike anonymous research departments or lesser-known scientific organizations, the NBA is one of the most popular outfits in the world. It’s on the minds and lips of millions of people on a daily basis. This gives it the chance to manufacture change. A point not lost on many around the league.

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  • ‘Husband eaters’: the double loss of Bangladesh’s ostracised tiger widows

    After the trauma of losing their spouse and breadwinner to the Sundarbans’ great predator, women are cast out by their superstitious communities. But they are coming together to rebuild their lives

    Nobody saw exactly what happened in the minutes leading up to Aziz Murad’s death. But when his friends got back to the boat where they had left him, they found only his severed hand in the fishing net he was untying.

    “We were only gone for about five minutes,” says Abu Sufyan, who was first to reach the boat. “When we got back, he was gone and there was blood everywhere.”

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Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds

  • Study is a ‘wake-up call’ for marine protections

    Countries around the world are trying to bring fish populations back from the brink after decades of overfishing. But some marine protected areas are falling short with a certain type of fish. Here’s why.

  • ‘Changing Planet’ finds hope for climate-weary coral reefs

    In the third year of the sweeping global PBS series “Changing Planet,” Conservation International CEO M. Sanjayan explores how climate change is affecting some of Earth’s most vulnerable ecosystems — and the groundbreaking science that’s offering hope.

  • New film drops beat for ‘climate heroes’

    A new documentary takes viewers on a trip around the world to explore one of nature’s most powerful — yet overlooked — climate allies: blue carbon.

  • To save elephants, it takes a village

    Kenya’s Reteti Elephant Sanctuary — the first community-owned elephant sanctuary in East Africa — provides a place for injured elephants to heal and a home for elephants orphaned by poaching.

  • Amid a deforestation crisis, two countries plant seeds of hope

    Earth lost 3.7 million hectares (9.2 million acres) of tropical forest last year, an area nearly the size of the Netherlands. Yet amid these sobering findings, there are signs of hope.

  • New research: Critical 'irrecoverable carbon' at risk

    Earth has lost 2 billion metric tons of “irrecoverable carbon” since 2018 — an amount greater than the United States’ annual greenhouse gas emissions — underscoring the need to halt deforestation and expand protected areas.

  • What drives deforestation — and how can we stop it?

    As dangerous heatwaves shatter records around the world, a new study provides the most comprehensive review yet of how to stop deforestation — a major cause of climate-warming greenhouse gases, second only to fossil fuel emissions.

  • As coffee demand grows, farmers work to deliver a sustainable brew

    Every day, billions of cups of coffee are consumed around the world — and experts say demand could triple over the next 30 years. So, how will all those lattes, espressos and cold brews affect the environment?

  • Climate, biodiversity fight gets $5B shot in the arm

    In an announcement today at New York Climate Week, nine philanthropic organizations pledged US$ 5 billion over the next decade to support the creation and expansion of protected areas, sustainable management of the world’s oceans and Indigenous-led conservation.

  • Meet a scientist: the fisheries aficionado

    Ana Gloria Guzmán-Mora is the executive director of Conservation International’s Costa Rica program, where she works with local communities and governments to help them meet their goals for protecting the planet.

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