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: Be aware!

Donations

Donations can be made in euros or pounds, dollars and Swiss francs. Please let us know when you have made a donation, especially if you require an official receipt, as the bank does not always identify donors. All donations, however small, are very welcome.

ECO HVAR BANK DETAILS

Privredna Banka Zagreb d.d.

Poslovnica 220 Pjaca, Pjaca 1

21465 Jelsa, Croatia

IBAN: HR37 2340 0091 1106 0678 6 (Account number)

SWIFT CODE: PBZGHR2X

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

Miliband faces crunch decision on speed of greenhouse gas cuts

Energy secretary prepares new pledge for big UK carbon cuts in next decade amid potential cabinet division
Ed Miliband is facing his first key test on Labour’s ambitions for global climate leadership, with a crucial decision looming on how far and how fast to cut the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The energy secretary is preparing a new international pledge for the UK to cut carbon sharply in the next decade, but could face opposition within the cabinet.
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UK export of millions of endangered eels to Russia attacked as ‘bonkers’

Critics say eels could be smuggled eastwards towards Asia but exporter says they are for ‘restocking’ project
Millions of critically endangered eels have been exported from the Severn estuary to Russia this year and conservationists fear export quotas will be increased next year.
A tonne of glass eels, the young elvers that swim into European estuaries from the Sargasso Sea each spring, was flown to Kaliningrad this year, double the amount exported to the Russian port the previous year.
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More than 1,000 homes linked to £20bn green energy grid expected to be built in Highlands

Subsidiary of electricity firm SSE signs ‘unique and novel’ employment and social housing deal with local councils
More than 1,000 new homes are expected to be built across northern Scotland linked to a £20bn investment in grid infrastructure needed to meet the UK’s green energy targets.
SSEN Transmission, a subsidiary of the electricity firm SSE, has signed a deal with local councils and housing associations in the Highlands to fund at least 1,000 new properties as well as the refurbishment of existing, unoccupied ones.
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A Colombian warlord became the Amazon rainforest’s most unlikely protector. Now he is cutting it down

Deforestation fell by a third when the guerrilla leader Ivan Mordisco violently enforced a logging ban, but now he has changed tack and is threatening Cop16 biodiversity talks
In the Amazon states of southern Colombia, uniform patches of cattle pasture suddenly give way to trees so numerous and densely packed that the blots of emerald, lime green and white overlap as vines, leaves and tree trunks merge into one.
According to official figures, this place is an international success story: the frontline of the country’s fight against deforestation, which it slashed last year by 36%.
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More than 1m farmed salmon die at supplier to leading UK retailers

Mowi Scotland, which supplies Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s, blames a rise in sea temperatures for the deaths, while campaigners say expanding farms will make things worse
More than a million dead fish, the biggest mass die-off of farmed salmon in Scotland in a decade, have been recorded at a farm belonging to the UK’s largest supplier.
The deaths at two adjacent Mowi Scotland sites in Loch Seaforth on the Outer Hebrides – licensed as one farm by the Scottish government – rose to just over a million during the year-and-a-half production cycle that it usually takes to raise a salmon in seawater, and which in this case began in spring 2023. Mowi supplies salmon to retailers including Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda and Ocado. Many of its farms, including those in the Hebrides, are certified under the RSPCA Assured label, which guarantees higher animal welfare standards.
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Consumers embrace Ireland’s first bottle deposit return scheme

Since February, 630m empty cans and bottles have been deposited at reverse vending machines
After initial consumer confusion and irritation, Ireland’s first ever bottle deposit return scheme has finally been embraced by the public, with 111m containers returned in August – up from 2m in February when the scheme launched – new data shows.
Re-turn, which was mandated by the Irish government, to implement the scheme as part of a bid to meet EU 90% recycling targets, said that in the eight months since February, 630m containers have been deposited at reverse vending machines up and down the country.
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North Carolina farms face depleted, toxic soil after historic Helene flooding

In the mountainous area near Asheville, affected growers must now replenish water-logged and often tainted land
Hurricane Helene took much from western North Carolina where I live, farm and raise my family.The stories are harrowing: houses obliterated by landslides, whole families washed away, corpses revealed as the waters receded.
Suddenly, there’s deep climate trauma here, in a place where we mistakenly thought hurricanes happened to Floridians and coastal communities, not us. Helene stole our sense of security: we now side-eye trees, which crushed homes, power lines, cars and people. And the rain, the farmer’s frequent wish, turned our rivers maniacal.
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Through the roof: how a Brisbane shed is turning old solar panels into silver and copper

Australia’s solar waste problem – identified as a priority by the federal government in 2016 – is becoming larger and more urgent
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In a 50m shed south of Brisbane, solar panels are being turned into silver and copper.
Photovoltaic panels no longer capable of producing electricity are having their aluminium and wires removed before being ground up and refined into plastic, glass, silicon, silver and copper. So far, nothing has gone to waste.
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How a plastic cave made in Spain keeps Amazonian culture alive 5,000 miles away

When ancient carvings were vandalised, the Wauja feared their knowledge was lost. But 3D imaging has created a replica at the heart of Brazil’s first Xingu people’s museum
It is not yet dawn in Ulupuwene, an Indigenous village in the Brazilian Amazon, but the Wauja people have already risen to prepare for the festive day ahead. The sound of clarinet-like instruments floats across the village, on the banks of the Batovi River, as women sweep the earthen floor between the thatched oca,or traditional houses.
Men paint their bodies with charcoal and bright-red achiote seeds. As the sun rises over the rainforest, men, women and children all meet in the village centre to sing and dance.
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‘I’m not voting for either’: fracking’s return stirs fury in Pennsylvania town whose water turned toxic

The small town of Dimock saw its water become brown, undrinkable, even flammable – and its residents are still feeling the effects
Fracking has burst back on to the national stage in the US presidential election contest for the must-win swing state of Pennsylvania. But for one town in this state that saw its water become mud-brown, undrinkable and even flammable 15 years ago, the specter of fracking never went away.
Residents in Dimock, a rural town of around 1,200 people in north-east Pennsylvania, have been locked in a lengthy battle to remediate their water supply that was ruined in 2009 after the drilling of dozens of wells to access a hotspot called the “Saudi Arabia of gas” found deep underneath their homes.
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Eco Health News feeds

AI to help doctors spot broken bones on X-rays

It is safe, could speed up diagnosis and relieve NHS pressure, the health assessment body says.
Patients to get full access to record on NHS App

Medical records, test results and letters to be available to all on NHS App in digital revolution.
Jokey reform ideas removed from NHS website

The health department says it is removing "irrelevant" posts from an online consultation.
What are the symptoms of prostate cancer?

One in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime.
Infertility made me feel guilty, says TV newsreader

Andrea Byrne says she felt her husband would be "better off" without her during fertility treatment.
More babies were harmed in Lucy Letby’s care, new evidence suggests

BBC Panorama sees documents which show a baby's blood sugar dropped soon after Letby came on duty.
Products recalled over peanut contamination fears

Among the products recalled are a range of dips, curry powders and seasonings.
Covid inquiry told of trust do-not-resuscitate rule

Patients' families were “horrified but not surprised” when told the blanket policy had been in place.
UK firm GSK to pay $2.2bn over Zantac cancer claims

The firm has reached agreements with law firms representing about 80,000, or 93%, of claimants.
We were not treated as parents, Covid inquiry told

Mum of premature twins says rigid restrictions on birthing wards during Covid were traumatic.

Eco Nature News feeds

‘Intense’ drought, fires pummel Amazon

Parts of the Amazon rainforest are suffering through the worst droughts ever recorded. As a result major rivers are dwindling and wildfires are burning out of control. Deforestation is behind it.
News spotlight: How many fish in the sea? Less than we thought

There are plenty of fish in the sea, so the old saying goes. But that’s not as true as it used to be: Climate change, pollution and overfishing have slashed global fish populations. Now a new study suggests the problem may be worse than expected.
World Elephant Day: 3 stories to catch up on

Elephants have a profound impact on people and nature. Known as “ecosystem engineers,” they spread seeds that restore forests. Yet, poaching, habitat destruction and climate change have pushed these giants to the brink.
Why rare species thrive on Indigenous lands

From the savannas of Africa to remote Pacific islands, Indigenous Peoples and local communities are helping to conserve some of the most remarkable species on Earth.
Study: As global temperatures rise, climate ‘tipping points’ loom

Earth is teetering perilously close to climate “tipping points.” Now, scientists have found that every fraction of a degree of warming matters when it comes to whether or not these tipping points occur.
New study links birds' diets to forest health

A new study finds that birds’ feeding preferences are highly connected to environmental stressors — and changes in their behavior could have major impacts on forests and other critical ecosystems.
In Ecuador, a ‘milestone’ effort to protect mangroves — and people

Once underappreciated, mangroves are having a moment. Now, a landmark $36.4 million project aims to give Ecuador’s degraded mangroves a new lease on life.
One small country, one giant leap for nature

Guyana is making some giant steps for conservation with plans to double its protected areas within the next 18 months.
Study: Reforestation is cheaper than previously thought

Restoring forests is critical for stopping climate change — but it costs money, and there’s more than one way to do it. So, what's the best way? A new study has answers.
Meet an organic food startup with Indigenous roots

Pantry staples don’t get a lot of love. But for Sarela Herrada, they’re at the heart of a mission to support farming communities and make healthier, ethically-sourced foods more widely available.

ECO HVAR: AIMS AND ACTIVITIES OF THE CHARITY

Environment

Health

Animals