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.

 

 

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Eco Environment News feeds

  • Sex garden to ‘break taboos’ at Chelsea flower show as gnome ban ends

    Lovehoney sponsors Aphrodite-themed ‘pleasure garden’ full of flowers associated with love and sex

    It is one of the most prestigious events of the UK social calendar, but the great and good attending Chelsea flower show may be in for a shock this year as the Royal Horticultural Society unveils a sex-themed garden sponsored by a company that sells vibrators.

    Lovehoney, a sex toy company, is sponsoring an Aphrodite-themed “pleasure garden” full of flowers and plants associated with love and sex.

    Chelseaflowershow will be held at the Royal Hospital Gardens from 19 to 23 May.

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  • King opens world’s longest managed coastal walk – but much of it is still closed off

    Landowner disputes, coastal erosion and disused ferry hindering completion of King Charles III England coast path

    The longest managed coastal walking route in the world has been opened by the king at the Seven Sisters cliff walk.

    However, large parts of the King Charles III England coast path are still closed to the public after objections from landowners, fears about coastal erosion and a disused ferry.

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  • UK to cut climate aid to developing countries by 14% to £2bn a year in ‘refocus’

    Move will put national security and lives overseas at risk, critics say, as overall UK aid budget is slashed to 0.3% of gross national income

    Climate aid to developing countries from the UK will be cut by about 14% to roughly £2bn a year under government plans, in a move critics said would put national security and lives overseas at risk.

    The move follows bitter rows with the Treasury, which wanted deeper cuts owing to pressure on spending resulting from the war in Iran.

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  • Stop mowing the lawn – and five more ways to save Britain’s ‘charming’ and ‘polite’ gatekeeper butterflies

    Conservation can be hard work. But not when it comes to helping these little orange and brown beauties

    You’ve almost certainly seen gatekeeper butterflies, even if you don’t know them by name. The gatekeeper is, says naturalist and butterfly enthusiast Matthew Oates, “a charming butterfly; a charming meditation of soft oranges and browns”. Traditionally found in the “scrub edges” (the borders between grassland and woods) and at hedge margins, they are frequently seen in suburban and urban areas, near garden gates (hence their name) and at the base of shrubs. The gatekeeper is in no hurry, so you’ll get to enjoy it. “It doesn’t dash about at great speed,” says Oates. “It flops around; both males and females bask a lot.” As a bonus, Oates adds, gatekeeper males are “extremely polite to each other”, unlike lots of other butterflies, which are highly territorial. “They’re gentlemen.”

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  • Stopping gas dictating UK energy price could cut bills by £200, thinktank says

    Iran war has increased gas price, with effects on UK energy bills that could be avoided, Common Wealth says

    Household energy bills could be reduced by up to £203 a year by stopping expensive fossil gas setting the price of energy in the UK, according to a report.

    Under the existing system, gas – the most expensive form of electricity production in the UK system – set the price of energy 85% of the time in 2024 in the UK, even though it generates only about a quarter of Britain’s electricity.

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  • Butterflies crossing oceans, moths navigating by the stars: unravelling the mysteries of insect migrations

    Trillions of insects embark, largely unnoticed, on epic journeys every year across mountain ranges, deserts and seas, and it is only now, as their numbers suffer huge declines, that scientists are tracking their movements

    On a cloudless sunny day in October 1950, ornithologists Elizabeth and David Lack stood on a mountain pass in the Pyrenees and observed a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle – clouds of migrating insects.

    Up to 500 butterflies were fluttering past them every hour through the 2,200m-high Puerto de Bujaruelo mountain pass on the French-Spanish border. By mid-afternoon dragonflies were skimming through, outnumbering the butterflies by 10 to one. The spaces between were filled with thousands of tiny flies.

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  • Thousands of seabirds dying on western Europe’s coasts

    Puffins, guillemots and razorbills are being washed up dead or dying on Europe’s Atlantic coast in what scientists call a ‘wreck’

    Thousands of seabirds – mostly puffins, but also many guillemots and razorbills – are being washed up dead or dying on the Atlantic coasts of western Europe, in what scientists call a “wreck”.

    This year’s events, the consequence of a series of severe storms during the late autumn and winter, are the worst since 2014, when as many as 54,000 birds were found stranded. Of these, well over half – between 30,000 and 34,000 – were puffins.

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  • Just two flavours of chips and pub theme nights: how these isolated Queensland towns have survived being cut off for weeks

    Birdsville and Bedourie locals are used to being trapped by flooding – but if they run out of Tim Tams and chocolate, ‘that’s a big problem’

    To many city dwellers, becoming trapped for weeks where you live would be a terrifying prospect. Not so for the remote outback towns of Birdsville and Bedourie on the edge of the Munga-Thirri Simpson desert. Five weeks after flooding cut off roads into the towns, the residents’ biggest complaint is that the local store is down to two flavours of chips.

    Since early February, the rural Queensland communities which border both the Northern Territory and South Australia have only been accessible by plane. Flooding has turned the orange outback green-blue and, with further heavy rainfall and flooding forecast in the coming days, the dirt roads aren’t expected to open for another month.

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  • Plantwatch: the Natal crocus co-opts fire, bees and ants to reproduce

    Perhaps the biggest surprise is that it tricks ants into moving its seeds with a scent that mimics their larvae

    Plants are superb at enticing animals to pollinate their flowers or carry off their seeds. But one plant co-opts an astonishing combination of fire, bees and ants to mastermind its reproduction.

    The South African Natal crocus, Apodolirion buchananii, has a gloriously bright white flower that emerges from the ground before its leaves appear in early spring. But the flower only blooms shortly after fire breaks out naturally in its native grasslands, leaving it standing like a beacon among the blackened grass to help lure bee pollinators, with an irresistible sweet scent that wafts through the air.

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  • ‘Fear is good’: my scary subterranean journey into Underland, the film of Robert Macfarlane’s dazzling book

    As the hit travelogue about the worlds beneath us becomes a film, its maker takes us on a voyage through Las Vegas storm drains and the caves of Yucatán – via Goatchurch Cavern in the bowels of Somerset

    Just off the B3134 in Somerset is a portal to the underworld. The smaller of two openings to Goatchurch Cavern, it’s called the Tradesman’s Entrance – and through it I am squeezing. After tumbling on my bum over damp smooth rock, lacerating a jumpsuit in the process, I venture down and down, sometimes crawling, sometimes standing upright, trying to find footholds in the dark.

    I’m here with film-maker Robert Petit, so he can show me something of what he’s been experiencing for the past five years, on his way to making an endearingly poetic documentary film called Underland, which riffs on nature-writer Robert Macfarlane’s bestselling 2019 subterranean travelogue of the same name. We’re heading 100ft underground to the Boulder Chamber where, over sugary snacks, I will quiz him about his obsession.

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