Eco Hvar's aims for protecting animals and improving animal welfare, plus related articles
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Draft Motion for a Resolution prepared for the EU Parliamentary Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, March 2016
Draft Motion prepared by Rapporteurs Pavel Poc (Socialists and Democrats Group), Kateřina Konečná on behalf of the European United Left and Nordic Green Left group, Bas Eickhout of the Greens / European Free Alliance Group, Piernicola Pedicini of the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy Group, Mark Demesmaeker, Sirpa Pietikäinen and Frédérique Ries. This draft Motion was carried forward for the vote in a Parliamentary Plenary Session in April 2016.
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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.
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.
Oceans absorb 90% of global heating, making them a stark indicator of the relentless march of the climate crisis
The world’s oceans absorbed colossal amounts of heat in 2025, setting yet another new record and fuelling more extreme weather, scientists have reported.
More than 90% of the heat trapped by humanity’s carbon pollution is taken up by the oceans. This makes ocean heat one of the starkest indicators of the relentless march of the climate crisis, which will only end when emissions fall to zero. Almost every year since the start of the millennium has set a new ocean heat record.
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Cars that emit fumes closer to pavement result in pedestrians experiencing 40% more pollution
Some vehicles are much more polluting than others and the design of exhaust pipes could affect how much air pollution we breathe when we walk along a busy road, research has found.
Diesel vehicles still dominate exhaust pollution 10 years after the International Council on Clean Transportation revealed that many diesel cars were highly polluting, emitting far more nitrogen oxides on the road than in official testing.
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For much of the last 30 years, the rest of the world has been forced to persevere with climate action in the face of US intransigence
Donald Trump’s latest attack on climate action takes place amid rapidly rising temperatures, rising sea levels, still-rising greenhouse gas emissions, burgeoning costs from extreme weather and the imminent danger that the world will trigger “tipping points” in the climate system that will lead to catastrophic and irreversible changes.
The US president’s decision to withdraw from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the world’s leading body of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will not alter any of those scientific realities.
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This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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Vast swathes of the country’s trees have been killed off by droughts and infestations, in a trend sweeping across Europe. A shift towards more biodiverse cultivation could offer answers
Even the intense green of late spring cannot mask the dead trees in the Harz mountains. Standing upright across the gentle peaks in northern Germany, thousands of skeletal trunks mark the remnants of a once great spruce forest.
Since 2018, the region has been ravaged by a tree-killing bark beetle outbreak, made possible by successive droughts and heatwaves. It has transformed a landscape known for its verdant beauty into one dominated by a sickly grey.
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Citizen scientists help in University of Bonn study showing river carries up to 4,700 tonnes of ‘macrolitter’ annually
Thousands of tonnes of litter are pouring into the North Sea via the Rhine every year, poisoning the waters with heavy metals, microplastics and other chemicals, research has found.
This litter can be detrimental to the environment and human health: tyres, for example, contain zinc and other heavy metals that can be toxic to ecosystems in high concentrations.
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Abernethy Forest, Cairngorms: Thanks to a local collaborative effort, linnets, bramblings, green and goldfinches are coming to this field in joyful flocks
It’s -6C and I’m off to what has been a regular haunt recently – a field planted by Speyside Fields for Wildlife. This is a small, community-run charity that works with local farmers, crofters and others to take over “spare” fields and land for wildlife-friendly crops.
Some sites are planted with annuals such as cornflower, corncockle, marigold and poppy – important sources of pollen, nectar and flowers that used to grow among the grain crops before herbicides became commonplace. Others, such as this one on a hill farm, have been planted with seed crops that benefit birds and other wildlife during autumn and winter.
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In this week’s newsletter: Conservationists have seen nests raided around the country to match demand from the Middle East
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Earlier this week we published an investigation that found hundreds of UK peregrine falcon nests have been raided in the past decade, in order to feed a growing appetite to own prized birds for racing and breeding in the Middle East.
This piece has been a year in the making, working with a great team of reporters from Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) to shed light on a multimillion-dollar industry that stretches around the world.
Germany’s dying forests are losing their ability to absorb CO2. Can a new way of planting save them?
The LA wildfire victims still living in toxic homes: ‘We have nowhere else to go’
‘Just an unbelievable amount of pollution’: how big a threat is AI to the climate?
How demand for elite falcons in the Middle East is driving illegal trade of British birds
Global wildlife crime causing ‘untold harm’, UN report finds
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At the Oxford farming conference there were signs the government has much to do to win back farmers’ trust
Few symbols were more potent than the wooden coffin bearing the inscription “RIP British agriculture, 30th October 2024” that greeted Labour’s environment minister at the annual Oxford farming conference.
It marked the date of Rachel Reeves’s first budget, when she announced plans to levy inheritance tax on farms. For the chancellor’s cabinet colleague Emma Reynolds, it underlined the anger among Britain’s farmers.
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Sandbanks can shift position during winter storms, but sonar mapping means charts can now be updated immediately
Offshore sandbanks are a particular navigation hazard because, unlike rocks and reefs, they have a habit of shifting position during winter storms.
The Goodwin Sands is a 10-mile (16km) bank off the coast of Deal in Kent, close to the busy shipping lanes of the Dover strait. The sands have claimed about 2,000 vessels over the years. In 1634, two lighthouses were set up on South Foreland for sailors to follow a safe route through.
Continue reading...Cases up after two weeks of decline, as hospitals report rise in slips and falls because of cold snap.
Overweight people shed large amounts on jabs but gain 0.8 kg a month on average once off them, study shows.
Some people are waiting more than a year to have their claims processed, the Public Accounts Committee says.
The health secretary had made it his personal mission to banish the fax machine from the NHS.
In Birmingham hospitals knives are regularly found, with one produced by a patient ready for an MRI.
The firm says its chatbot sees health and wellbeing questions from 230 million people every week.
The food giant discovered some batches of SMA infant and follow-on formula could lead to vomiting
The weather alert service warns the public when high or low temperatures could damage their health.
After being struck down by winter illness, the BBC's James Gallagher goes in search of ways to boost his immune system.
As temperatures fall across much of the UK, the best ways to keep people and pets warm and dry.
Deep in the mountains of Palawan, Conservation International scientists are capturing what few people ever see: the secret lives of the Philippines’ rarest species.
At Maido — the Lima restaurant recently crowned the best in the world — one of the star dishes is paiche, a giant prehistoric river fish.Its journey to the table begins on a small family farm deep in Peru’s Amazon.
“Jane Goodall forever changed how people think about, interact with and care for the natural world,” said Daniela Raik, interim CEO of Conservation International.
Conservation International’s Neil Vora was selected for TIME’s Next 100 list — alongside other rising leaders reshaping culture, science and society.
Climate change is happening. And it’s placing the world’s reefs in peril. What can be done?
After decades of negotiation, the high seas treaty is finally reality. The historic agreement will pave the way to protect international waters which face numerous threats.
The Amazon rainforest, known for lush green canopies and an abundance of freshwater, is drying out — and deforestation is largely to blame.
The ocean is engine of all life on Earth, but human-driven climate change is pushing it past its limits. Here are five ways the ocean keeps our climate in check — and what can be done to help.
In a grueling and delicate dance, a team led by Conservation International removes a massive undersea killer.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. These pictures might be worth even more. An initiative featuring the work of some of the world’s best nature photographers raises money for environmental conservation.
