Eco Hvar - home for ecology on Hvar Island in Croatia

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

For the Good of All!

Better Ways

Nature Watch

Highlights

About Animals

Forum items

Notices

Poisons Beware!

Donations

Donations can be made in euros, pounds sterling, US and Australian dollars and Swiss francs. All donations, however small, are very welcome. We acknowledge donations by email if we have the donor's address. Please let us know if you require a formal paper receipt.

PLEASE NOTE OUR NEW BANK DETAILS:

ECO HVAR BANK DETAILS

OTP banka d.d. Split, Domovinskog rata 61, 21000 Split;

Poslovnica Jelsa, 21465 Jelsa.

IBAN HR7024070001100727245; BIC OTPVHR2X
Account name: ECO HVAR

Account address: Pitve 93, 21465 Jelsa, Croatia

If the payment slip has a box for 'further details' or 'further information' you should enter the Charity's OIB: 14009858487, and state 'donation' or 'donacija'.

About The Site

The site contains articles and information on topics related to health, the environment and animal welfare.

While the focus is on Hvar Island in Dalmatia, much of the information is relevant to the rest of Croatia, and some to Europe, the United States and the rest of the world.

The main language of the site is English, but articles in Croatian are being added as quickly as possible. Some of the Croatian articles are translations, some original. Book reviews are in the language of the publication being reviewed.

To see all the articles archived in each category, click on the category name which is given below the title of each article (Environment, Highlights, Notices etc).

For further relevant news items and bits of interesting information, please refer to our Facebook page.

Thanks

We are very grateful to Željka Horvat Kozulić for kindly and expertly designing the ECO HVAR logo, also to Jelena Bunčuga, Petra Mimica, Bartul Mimica, Ivana Župan, Dinka Barbić and Josip Vlainić for their generous help in translating articles into Croatian.

Special thanks are also owed to Mihael Magdić of Orion Informatika i Trgovina, Varaždin, for his excellent and patient efforts in designing the website.

Eco Environment News feeds

Brazil to auction oil exploration rights months before hosting Cop30

Sale covering 56,000 square miles set to go ahead despite opposition from Indigenous and environmental groups
The Brazilian government is preparing to stage an oil exploration auction months before it hosts the Cop30 UN climate summit, despite opposition from environmental campaigners and Indigenous communities worried about the environmental and climate impacts of the plans.
Brazil’s oil sector regulator, ANP, will auction the exploration rights to 172 oil and gas blocks spanning 56,000 square miles (146,000 sq km), an area more than twice the size of Scotland, most of it offshore.
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Revealed: More than 24,000 factory farms have opened across Europe

Intensive livestock farms such as those found across the US are spreading across the continent, according to new data
American-style intensive livestock farms are spreading across Europe, with new data revealing more than 24,000 megafarms across the continent.
In the UK alone, there are now 1,824 industrial-scale pig and poultry farms, according to the data obtained by AGtivist that relates to 2023.
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‘It really is possible to be zero waste’: the restaurant with no bin

Baldío in Mexico City is part of a new wave of restaurants embracing a regenerative ethos – with delicious results
Hunched over the pass in the open restaurant kitchen, a team of chefs are dusting ceviche with a powder made from lime skins that would, in most cases, have been thrown away. The Mexico City restaurant where they work looks like most restaurant kitchens but it lacks one key element: there is no bin.
Baldío was co-founded by brothers Lucio and Pablo Usobiaga and chef Doug McMaster, best known for his groundbreaking zero-waste spot Silo London. “In my eyes, bins are coffins for things that have been badly designed,” says McMaster. “If there was a trophy for negligence, it would be bin-shaped.”
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Attenborough’s Ocean is the film I’ve been waiting my whole career for – now the world must act on its message | George Monbiot

The documentary shows the damage that fishing does to our planet. So why does the industry still hold governments to ransom?
I have been saying this a lot recently: “At last!” At last, a mainstream film bluntly revealing the plunder of our seas. At last, a proposed ban on bottom trawling in so-called “marine protected areas” (MPAs). At last, some solid research on seabed carbon and the vast releases caused by the trawlers ploughing it up. But still I feel that almost everyone is missing the point.
David Attenborough’s Ocean film, made for National Geographic, is the one I’ve been waiting for all my working life. An epoch ago, when I worked in the BBC’s Natural History Unit in the mid-1980s, some of us lobbied repeatedly for films like this, without success. Since then, even programmes that purport to discuss marine destruction have carefully avoided the principal cause: the fishing industry. The BBC’s Blue Planet II and Blue Planet Live series exemplified the organisation’s perennial failure of courage.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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Yorkshire enters drought after driest spring in 132 years

Hosepipe bans possible as low reservoir levels make region second in England to enter drought status
Yorkshire has become the second area of England to enter drought after the country recorded its driest spring in 132 years.
Hosepipe bans could be possible if the region did not have significant rainfall in the coming weeks as, despite recent showers, reservoir stocks were continuing to dwindle. Yorkshire Water reservoir stocks dropped 0.51% over the last week to 62.3%, significantly below the average of 85.5% for this time of year.
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Weather tracker: Europe and China in midst of record-breaking heat

Temperatures over 40C recorded in Portugal and Spain, while China endures heatwave conditions in high 40s
Temperature records for early June are being broken across large parts of Europe, with the mercury reaching 40.5C (104.9F) in Mértola, Portugal, on Sunday. On the same day, several weather stations in Spain recorded temperatures in excess of 42C, with dozens of sites at record levels for early summer. Across the Balkans, temperatures reached 37C. On Monday, 37.6C was recorded in Tirana, Albania, while in Greece night-time minimum temperatures have stayed mostly over 30C for much of this week.
Hot conditions are to intensify across central and western Europe over the next few days, with temperatures across large parts of France, Benelux, Italy and west Germany expected to reach the low to mid 30s celsius. Highs of up to 35C are expected in Paris on Friday, with up to 38C forecast in Rome. Conditions will ease somewhat, but a heatwave will soon develop across Iberia, with Madrid expected to reach the high-30s celsius each day next week.
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Week in wildlife: a flying zebra, chilling pelicans and a ghost elephant

The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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A map, a myth and a pre-Incan lagoon: the man who brought water back to a drought-ridden town

When historian Galo Ramón uncovered a long-forgotten pre-Incan water system in Ecuador, he set about restoring it, and helped transform the landscape and livelihoods
One day in 1983, while studying a hand-drawn map from 1792 of his home town in Ecuador, Galo Ramón, a historian, came across a dispute between a landowner and two local Indigenous communities, the Coyana and the Catacocha. The boundary conflict involved an ancient lagoon, depicted on the map.
“The drawing depicted a lagoon brimming with rainwater,” says Ramón. Ravines were depicted forming below the high-altitude lagoon, indicating that it supplied watersheds further down – contrary to the typical flow where a watershed feeds into the lagoon.
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Extreme heat poses a danger to players and fans at Club World Cup

Already controversial because of extra fixtures and Fifa involvement, the new tournament in the US is likely to be played in temperatures above 30C
Across this weekend, the US National Weather Service is predicting “moderate” heat risk for Miami and Los Angeles. With temperatures likely to exceed 30C, the agency warns “most individuals sensitive to heat” will be affected, a group that contains those “exercising or doing strenuous activity outdoors during the heat of the day”. This weekend is also when the Club World Cup begins.
When Lionel Messi and Inter Miami kick off the tournament on Saturday night against Al Ahly of Egypt it will be 8pm in Miami and, although the humidity is predicted to be high, the day’s peak temperatures will have passed. Paris Saint-Germain and Atlético Madrid, however, will play under the full height of the California sun on Sunday, with their Group B fixture a midday kick-off at the famously uncovered Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
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How does air pollution affect mental health? New study aimed to find out

Research looked at records of 14,800 people in Bradford to see what happened after they moved to more polluted area
What happens to your mental and physical health when you move to an area with worse air pollution? That’s the subject of a fascinating new UK-based study.
Prof Rosie McEachan, the director of NHS Born in Bradford, asked: “Do already unhealthy communities, who are often poorer members of our society, end up in unhealthier environments because no one else wants to live there; or is it the places themselves that are making people ill?”
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Eco Health News feeds

Mood swings fuelled Heston Blumenthal's genius. But the highs got higher and the lows got darker

A new BBC documentary looks at how a diagnosis of bipolar disorder at 57 changed the celebrity chef's life.
I'm an NHS leader - but mum still suffered at hands of health service because she was black

NHS Confederation chair Lord Adebowale says his mother's death illustrates inequalities in the system.
Why is my hay fever so bad this year?

It's peak pollen season so we set out the best ways to treat hay fever symptoms, and other advice.
World-first blood cancer therapy to be given on NHS

It sneaks toxic drugs inside cancer cells to hit them hard while minimising side-effects.
Hospital backlog drops to lowest level in two years

But the NHS in England is still well below its target for seeing patients within 18 weeks.
MPs set to vote on decriminalising abortion in England and Wales

Women would never be prosecuted for terminating a pregnancy under proposed new laws.
We quit our jobs, sold our home twice and spent 10 years fighting for the truth

A NHS trust and hospital manager have been found guilty of health and safety failings over the death of Alice Figueiredo.
Cervical screening invites to change in England

Invitations be sent out by the NHS every five years instead of every three for women aged 25-49 in England, if they have a negative test.
Martha doctor's failings 'particularly grave'

A medical tribunal has found a senior doctor's failings amounted to gross negligence and misconduct.
Why food firms are scrambling to cut down on ingredients

Food firms are marketing ranges with fewer ingredients, but are they healthier?

Eco Nature News feeds

To save a dying forest, this town dug in

Years ago, construction of a road cut off the flow of water to a mangrove forest in Mexico, depriving these coast-hugging trees of what they need to thrive and proving deadly for wildlife. But look closely today, and signs of life are beginning to reappear.
Indonesia halts mining in treasured islands

A jewel of the “Coral Triangle” just got a reprieve as Indonesia announced it revoked the mining permits of four companies operating in one of the most biodiverse marine ecosystems on Earth.
High seas treaty ‘a long time coming’

UN gathering boosts hopes for sealing deal to protect open ocean, Conservation International expert says.
Hawai‘i passes landmark tourist fee to fight climate change

Hawai‘i lawmakers passed a groundbreaking bill that will impose a small tax on visitors in an effort to protect the islands from the growing risks of a warming planet.
News spotlight: Can atolls survive sea-level rise?

Across the Indian and Pacific oceans, tiny atolls are facing an existential crisis. But not all islands are equally vulnerable — it comes down to ecosystem health.
In age of extinction, ‘we need your creativity’

“We need your creativity, we need your skills, we need your decency, we need your commitment to healing our planet,” said CEO M. Sanjayan during the commencement address at William & Mary.
An overlooked climate ally is in deep trouble

Underwater and out of sight, the world’s seagrasses are under threat. A new study says failure to protect them will come at a steep cost — in more ways than one.
News spotlight: Study buoys hope for rare axolotls

Axolotls — the cute and charismatic creatures made famous by the video game “Minecraft” — are in a free fall. But a new study is offering a glimmer of hope.
Heal our planet: Protecting nature for climate

"Heal our planet, protect our future”: six words driving a global movement to protect nature. Conservation International is meeting the moment in an ambitious new campaign.
News spotlight: Got climate anxiety? Write a letter to the future

Penning a message can ease fears, promote action, recent research indicates.

ECO HVAR: AIMS AND ACTIVITIES OF THE CHARITY

Environment

Health

Animals