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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).
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Exclusive: critics warn Reform UK use of trade policy would increase food costs amid cost-of-living crisis
Nigel Farage’s farming adviser has called for a doubling of wheat prices by using trade policy, which critics have said would hike food costs during a cost-of-living crisis.
Arable farmer and campaigner Clive Bailye has been appointed as a farming and land use adviser for Reform UK. Bailye owns the website The Farming Forum, a social network for farmers, and helped organise the large-scale protestsagainst the Labour government’s introduction of inheritance tax for farmed land.
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Andalusia houses ‘Europe’s vegetable garden’ – a laboratory of development and innovation producing vegetables for all of Europe
Europe’s vegetable garden is in Andalusia, southern Spain. It is so vast that it can even be seen from space: if you open Google Maps and look west of Almería, you will see a white patch that looks like a glacier, but as you zoom in, you realise it is the highest concentration of greenhouses in the world. More than 30,000 hectares (74,131 acres) of land are covered in plastic, a geometric labyrinth five times the size of Manhattan, where 3.5m tons of vegetables are produced every year – from tomatoes to cucumbers, peppers to courgettes, aubergines to melons – enough to feed half a billion people and generate a turnover of more than 3bn euros.
Workers prepare peppers inside the Hortamar cooperative, a fruit and vegetable producers’ organisation in Roquetas de Mar, founded in 1977, that now has more than 240 members and sells throughout Europe, the US and Canada.
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A project on Dartmoor to reprofile the landscape aims to return the springy bog – and carbon store – to its natural condition
At one of the most remote spots in southern England, Al West skilfully tilts and rotates the bucket of a small digger, like a giant mechanical hand. He lifts turf, and pats it down gently on to the rich, dark brown peat beneath. Above him, the granite stack of Fur Tor looms above the vast, boggy, wild expanse of northern Dartmoor.
It is repetitive, delicate work, which West carries out with dexterity and care. Within a boundary of white flags, he takes from a borrow pit and fashions a peat embankment across each ditch and depression covering the land, to restore it to its natural smoothness and to stop the rainwater running off down the valley.
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Dartmoor, Devon: This one is an early-arriver after spending winter in sub-Saharan Africa, and it’s keen to show off its ‘white arse’
The first signs of spring shine through the shadow of Haytor Rocks, a granite guard of Dartmoor’s natural secrets. The sun’s heat warms the granite, the first bumblebees thrum over the gorse. After months of mizzly rain, it was freeing to be out on the moor again. The trees were awakening, early emergers blackthorn and willow, stalwarts of Emsworthy Mire – an old friend.
With binoculars pressed tight to my eyes, I scan the valley, searching for any sign of returning migrants. Mid-March is too early for some, but the more proactive species love to start the season early. A raven cronks overhead, a sound as welcoming as it is unnerving.
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Female named Rounder surrounded by family members when about to give birth to her second calf
Scientists have managed to film a sperm whale giving birth while other female whales worked together to support the mother and her newborn.
A team from Project Ceti, an international effort seeking to understand how whales communicate, was in a boat near a pod of 11 whales off the coast of the Caribbean island of Dominica on 8 July 2023.
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National Trust says one year after reintroduction they are enriching habitats and may be having kits this summer
They were released this time last year with fanfare, much hope and also, perhaps, a little trepidation.
Twelve months on, there have been ups and downs for the first beavers to be (officially) reintroduced into the wild in England since the semiaquatic mammals were hunted to extinction 400 years ago.
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Conserving the watershed of the Tana and improving farming methods is securing water supplies and livelihoods alike in a changing climate
When in 2017 David Nyoro became one of the first farmers to partner with Africa’s first water fund to conserve the watershed of Kenya’s biggest river, he received 180 high-value avocado seedlings. The 67-year-old’s farming methods had been dominated by annual crops that left large sections of his five-acre piece of land bare, increasing soil erosion and contributing to river sedimentation. “We used to lose a lot of topsoil to the river. Such loss of soil nutrients and poor farming practices meant we had less farm produce,” he says.
The avocado seedlings enabled him to grow his farm income to close to 2m Kenyan shillings (about £11,500 at today’s exchange rates), with each mature avocado tree yielding 70kg (154lbs) annually. He introduced cover crops to improve soil health and reduce soil erosion and sediment loads.
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Two kona low storms dumped up to 50in of rain on Oahu, flooding fields and submerging equipment
Eddie Oroyan’s farm was thriving when the storms hit. He and his wife had started LewaTerra Farm last year on a gorgeous stretch of land on the north shore of Oahu. They were delivering vegetables to customers in the community, selling at farmer’s markets and to local restaurants.
Then, on the week of 10 March, a first kona low storm hit the island, bringing copious amounts of water, flooding their land and wiping out crops. Nearly all their papayas were gone. And the tomatoes didn’t survive. But the couple quickly began cleaning, replanting and tying down crops, confident that they would get back on their feet shortly.
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Fossil-fuel burning at Ohio facility could burn longer, leaving Middletown residents to face environmental risks
It was just a few months after moving from Louisville to Middletown, Ohio, four years ago that Vivian Adams’s six-year-old daughter’s asthma problem worsened.
“My daughter was born prematurely so she already had lung issues,” she says, “[but] it’s gotten worse. She stays sick and coughing and can’t breathe. She’s had to go on everyday medication for her asthma, plus she has a rescue inhaler.”
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Many say they have not received support to rebuild their homes months after the storm caused unprecedented destruction
“Before Hurricane Melissa I could have navigated life, figured things out. But since its passage, everything has just been turned upside down,” said Kerry-Ann Vickers.
Vickers was three months pregnant when Hurricane Melissa demolished parts of her home in the coastal town of Black River, in St Elizabeth, west Jamaica, last October. Nearly six months on, Vickers, 25, is still struggling to get support to rebuild her house and is distraught that her baby will arrive in a home without a secure roof.
Continue reading...The worst seems to be over, but questions remain about why this happened and whether it could happen again.
Demand for ultrasound has increased but too few people are being trained for the job, sonographers warn.
After Noa-Rose became critically ill, the four-year-old spent two weeks fighting for her life.
New government guidance also suggests children under-two should not be watching screens alone.
The walkout over jobs and pay is one of the longest yet in the dispute, and will begin on 7 April in England.
Experts say the wait was indefensible and possibly delayed identification of the outbreak.
The survey shows only one in four people are satisfied with the NHS but the figure is even lower in younger age groups.
As patients struggle to find NHS dentists, Labour has a plan but not everybody is convinced it will work
The UK has failed to keep pace with the rest of the world. Can it regain its status, and how?
"We could still see cases continuing to come in, we need to keep an eye on those, the UKHSA says.
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.
