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, 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

Cop30 in talks to hire PR firm that worked for lobby seeking weaker Amazon protections

Revealed: Edelman worked for Brazilian trade group accused of pushing for environmental rollbacks in Amazon
Edelman, the world’s largest public relations agency, is in talks to work with the Cop30 team organising the UN climate summit in the Amazon later this year despite its prior connections to a major trade group accused of lobbying to roll back measures to protect the area from deforestation, the Guardian and the Centre for Climate Reporting can reveal.
The summit is set to take place in November in the city of Belém on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, which has been ravaged by deforestation linked to Brazil’s powerful agriculture industry. For the first time, the talks will be “at the epicenter of the climate crisis”, the summit’s president wrote last week. “As the Cop comes to the Amazon, forests will naturally be a central topic,” he added.
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Ed Miliband vows to engage with China on climate after Tory ‘negligence’

Energy security and net zero secretary travels to Beijing for countries’ first formal climate meetings since 2017
Ed Miliband has accused the previous Conservative government of negligence for failing to engage with China on climate issues, as he travelled to Beijing for the countries’ first formal climate meetings since 2017.
The secretary of state for energy security and net zero was in Beijing to announce a new annual UK-China climate dialogue. The first summit will take place in London later this year. China’s minister of ecology and environment, Huang Runqiu, is expected to attend.
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Exploited, recognised as a slavery victim, now facing deportation: one seafarer’s UK ordeal

After years of helping Scottish criminal investigations and despite fearing for his life in India, Vishal Sharma’s asylum claim has been rejected
When Vishal Sharma, an experienced merchant seaman, arrived in London from India in November 2017, he was looking forward to a good job on a Belgian tanker, the MT Waasmunster, assisting engineers. He had a 15-month contract and a transit visa, enabling him to travel to Milford Haven in Wales, where the 174-metre vessel was anchored.
But in a last-minute change of plan, his Mumbai agent told him to head to Southwick in West Sussex, England, to board a scallop trawler, the Noordzee.
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Storrington in West Sussex named UK’s first European stork village

Village joins continental network alongside nearby Knepp estate, as birds previously extinct in Britain flourish
The Saxons knew the West Sussex village of Storrington as Estorchestone, the “abode of the storks”.
But the graceful white birds disappeared from its skies more than 600 years ago, when they became extinct in Britain.
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From sewage and scum to swimming in ‘blue gold’: how Switzerland transformed its rivers

In the 1960s, the Swiss had some of the dirtiest water in Europe. Now, their cities boast pristine rivers and lakes – and other countries are looking to follow their lead
In the first days of spring, people flock to Lake Geneva’s broad, tree-lined promenade, their faces tilted towards the sun. Dior, Cartier and Rolex are among the high-end shopfronts overlooking the water. René Rottenberg, 75, has just finished his 400m swim through this upmarket urban jungle – a ritual he repeats up to five times a week, even in midwinter.
For the retired gynaecologist, being able to swim in the crystal-clear water is the greatest luxury. “It’s just so fun,” he says. “The place is beautiful.”
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Octopus? Ice cream? Is there anything gulls don’t eat? – in pictures

Gulls are known for being ravenous – check out a selection of things they like
• All images from the Gulls Eating Stuff project
• From profiteroles to moles: project uncovers gulls’ surprising diet
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‘Like a game of black-belt level Jenga’: inside the ancient art of Japanese carpentry

From the earthquake-defying joints that support a 13th-century temple to the delicacy of sashimono puzzle boxes, a new exhibition shows off the myriad possibilities of this centuries-old craft
Do you know your ant’s head from your shell mouth? Or your cogged lap from your scarfed gooseneck? These are just some of the mind-boggling array of timber jointing techniques on display in a new exhibition spotlighting the meticulous craft of Japanese carpentry. The basement gallery of London’s Japan House has been transformed into a woody wonder world of chisels and saws, mortises and tenons, and brackets of infinite intricacy, alongside traditional clay plastering, shoji paper screen making and tatami mat weaving. It is a dazzling display of the phenomenal skills behind centuries of timber architecture and joinery, celebrating elite master carpenters with the spiritual reverence of a high priesthood.

“In Japan we have a deep respect for our forests,” says curator Nishiyama Marcelo, who heads up the team at the Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum in Kobe, a temple to the history of Japanese joinery. “If a carpenter uses a 1,000-year-old tree, they must be prepared to take on more than 1,000 years of responsibility for the building that they create.”
It is a momentous duty, and one we should heed. As debates around the embodied carbon of the built environment dominate the construction industry, there could be no more timely exhibition to remind us of the importance of designing with longevity, care and repair in mind. Numerous specialist tools have been shipped over from the Kobe museum, along with a team of master carpenters who have built a remarkable series of structures in the gallery, replicating parts of buildings that have lasted for hundreds of years in the face of wind, rain, snow and earthquakes.
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The one change that worked: I got out of my car in the middle of my commute and sat under the trees

Three years ago, when I was stuck in a traffic jam, I decided to stop to visit a park I’d passed by many times. Now, I go there at least one morning a week
I must have passed it 100 times. Until one day in 2022, stuck in Melbourne traffic, I glanced towards the park in Bayside and saw mist rising from the trees, as if they had just exhaled into the dawn sunlight. This sight cheered me, lifting the pall of the workday grind ahead. Right then I made a resolution to interrupt my commute at least once a week by visiting the park and I have kept to it ever since.
The next day I left the stream of traffic, parked the car and walked into the park, skirting the cricket oval where dogs chase sassy swallows skimming the grass just out of reach. Past there is a quiet pond where you will find ducks and turtles, and beside it is one of those forgotten patches of land where nature gets to do her thing unhindered.
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The pop-up megacity: how the Kumbh Mela prepared for 660m Hindu devotees

Hundreds of millions of pilgrims flocked to the Ganges for this year’s festival, housed in a sprawling temporary metropolis stretching across 4,000 hectares of the floodplains of Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh
For 45 days the floodplains of Prayagraj, a city in Uttar Pradesh known as Allahabad until 2018, were a churning sea of humanity. Millions waded into the freezing waters of the sangam – the sacred confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, plus a mythical one, the Saraswati – believing that a single dip could wash away a lifetime of sin.
From dawn until well past midnight, the riverbanks teemed with saffron-clad sadhus, bare-chested pilgrims and families clutching brass urns, garlands and clay lamps, an unceasing tide of pilgrims.
Pilgrims performing one of the rituals associated with the ‘holy water’ of the rivers at this year’s Kumbh Mela
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Friends with benefits: Gina Rinehart and Peter Dutton’s ideological love-in

Since Dutton became opposition leader, the billionaire mining magnate has cultivated their bond. We look back at their increasingly close relationship
The buzz from Gina Rinehart’s 70th birthday party was reportedly “so spectacular” that it drifted across the Swan River from the mining magnate’s Perth home, catching the attention of people more than a kilometre away.
Four hundred guests, mostly employees, had gathered to mark the milestone of the Hancock Prospecting head, who is deferentially referred to as “the Chairman” or “Mrs Rinehart”.
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Eco Health News feeds

Poorest children missing more school and further behind after Covid

Those from the lowest income families are now up to 19 months behind peers by the age of 16.
Ex-hospital bosses call for inquiry to be suspended

The inquiry's chair says she has had similar requests from Letby's legal team and Tory MP David Davis.
Health secretary admits 'risk of disruption' in NHS overhaul

The health secretary defends scrapping NHS England but admits the reform will bring challenges.
NHS England chair warns the buck now stops with ministers

Will the abolition of NHS England work? Senior NHS England leader Richard Meddings has given the first response from the organisation itself
How our noisy world is seriously damaging our health

The BBC's James Gallagher investigates the invisible killer all around us.
Men denied life-extending prostate cancer drug

NHS England says it cannot afford to offer abiraterone, which is available in Scotland and Wales.
What does NHS England do? Your questions answered on health reforms

As part of Your Voice, Your BBC, we answer questions from you on government plans to scrap NHS England.
NHS England chair warns the buck now stops with ministers

Will the abolition of NHS England work? Senior NHS England leader Richard Meddings has given the first response from the organisation itself
Warning over the dangers of Botox parties

Healthcare Improvement Scotland is concerned about treatment at parties organised with unregulated providers.
'I couldn't cope if I passed condition to my kids'

A genetic testing service based in Devon is praised by a woman with a rare skin condition.

Eco Nature News feeds

For one former logging company, nature’s green is gold

The Amazon rainforest faced another difficult year. Despite bright spots, humanity is still asking too much of the forest. One company says it has an answer.
News spotlight: A unique poaching crisis takes root in South Africa

When you think of “wildlife trafficking,” you probably don’t think of succulents. Yet these unique plant species have been at the center of a growing poaching problem.
News spotlight: Indigenous leaders sign landmark carbon deal in Philippines

Indigenous leaders on the island of Palawan recently signed a landmark deal to establish the country’s first locally owned forest carbon project. The project aims to halt deforestation through the sale of carbon credits
In the news: Climate change is scrambling food production

Recent news provides a grim affirmation of Conservation International research — and underscores what must happen next.
Funding cuts leave a forest at risk

One of the world’s most important places for nature is a small strip of mountainous forest no more than about 40 miles wide. And for want of a relatively small amount of money, its long-term health is in doubt.
News spotlight: Climate change is coming for Pacific tuna

Conservation International science fuels effort to help island countries manage a deep shift in their waters.
Turf war? Fixing grasslands can ease human-wildlife clashes

In Kenya, competition for food leads to conflict between livestock and wildlife. A new study offers a simple approach to avoiding it.
Indonesia protects ‘walking sharks.’ Are other sharks next?

The Indonesian government has granted six species of threatened “walking sharks” the highest level of protection — a move experts hope will lead to the conservation of other sharks, whose numbers have plummeted due largely to the shark fin trade.
IPCC report: Climate change could soon outpace humanity’s ability to adapt

The catastrophic impacts of climate breakdown may soon outpace humanity’s ability to adapt to it, according to a new report.
In historic move, Costa Rica makes big splash for conservation

Costa Rica announced Friday that it will expand its protected ocean area from 2.7 percent to more than 30 percent of its territorial waters.

ECO HVAR: AIMS AND ACTIVITIES OF THE CHARITY

Environment

Health

Animals