Environment

Environment

 

ECO HVAR'S AIMS:

To initiate, organize, promote and encourage projects to preserve and improve the natural environment.

HOW?:

- through projects for education in organic methods of farming

- through projects for education in the use of biodegradable substances for household washing and cleaning

- through projects to reduce the use of poisons and chemicals

- through projects for education in waste and rubbish management

- through projects for education in recycling

- through  projects to clean up the environment

- through projects to establish valid international organic certification for products

- through co-operation with organizations having similar aims in Croatia and abroad

What inspired ECO HVAR for the environment

Names in English and Croatian of birds commonly seen on Hvar, together with the scientific names. 

The wildflowers on Hvar are a year-round joy. Even in the depths of winter, there is hardly a week without colours brightening up the countryside, contrasting with the island's rocks and the variegated dark green of the woodlands. 

Good health depends on clean air, clean water and a clean environment. Hvar Island is perfectly placed to offer all those amenities.

GBH is the acronym for Grievous Bodily Harm, a criminal offence in UK law. It also stands for glyphosate-based herbicides...

Wild orchids are a special part of our environment. Are we looking after them?

The Romans knew how to build, and they knew how to choose the best sites for their building. Diocletian's Palace in Split is a prime and well-preserved example. New discoveries in and around the Palace in recent years have brought about a major revision of the history of this magnificent Late Antique building project.

Organic farming: possible? YES! worthwhile? YES! Mihovil Stipišić from Vrboska is proving the point.

When soil is contaminated, what ends up on your plate and in your cup or glass is less than healthy. Chemical pesticides and artificial fertilizers are causing untold damage. The 'conventional model' of agriculture is exhausting the earth and undermining human health. There are much better methods of protecting soil and plants using natural resources.

Rubbish management is a hot topic, not to say hot potato, around the world at the moment, especially in Croatia, where the European Directives which were laid down some years ago are finally due to come into force on November 1st 2018.

 

The results from our survey about land usage on the Starigrad Plain (Hora, Ager). The survey was conducted on behalf of LAG Škoji (Local Action Group), Eco Hvar and the Agency for the Management of the Starigrad Plain. The aim was to gain an overview of land usage, and to gather information as to what the landowners think is needed to improve conditions in this historic field layout.

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Eco Environment News feeds

  • Exclusive: European Commission planning to rewrite key law to allow water-intensive mines in regions suffering from drought

    The European Commission plans to rewrite the EU’s flagship water protection law to speed up the development of critical minerals mines, despite many being located in drying and water-stressed regions, analysis has found.

    Mining is a water-intensive industry, requiring large volumes of water for ore processing, dust suppression, waste management and mine dewatering. While modern projects recycle water, they still require significant amounts, and in water-stressed regions those demands can add to pressure on already stretched rivers, aquifers and water supplies.

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  • The reconstruction of the vaquita, whose numbers barely reach double figures in the wild, is designed to help research and conservation efforts

    Scientists have created a digital reconstruction of the world’s most endangered marine mammal, preserving its anatomy in three dimensions to aid research and conservation efforts as the species teeters on the brink of extinction.

    The project digitised the skeleton of a female vaquita, a small porpoise found only in Mexico’s northern Gulf of California, using a combination of medical imaging, ultra-high-resolution micro CT scans and photography.

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  • Blaenau Ffestiniog, Gwynedd: This living sculpture, planted in the 1970s ‘for the 21st century’, is fading fast. But heartbreak is not the only response

    Ten years ago when I visited the Ash Dome, it was an elegant, twisting circle of beautiful trees. Ten years ago, ash dieback had not yet reached this corner of Wales. Returning now to this secret location, I steeled myself for heartbreak. And there it was.

    Today, the Ash Dome, a living sculpture by the renowned artist David Nash, is an elephant’s graveyard. Pale, twisted limbs encircle a heap of dead branches. On a few trunks, new shoots spring innocently upwards, but most are ailing, their bark white and flaky as dead skin.

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  • Apart from effort to electrify, there were geopolitical tensions around climate science and the 1.5C goal at pre-Cop31 climate talks

    Electrifying the world – with electric vehicles, electric heating and cooling, and modernised heavy industry – could be the next biggest step towards phasing out fossil fuels, replacing the 80% of global energy that still comes from hydrocarbons. As using electrical energy is much more efficient than combustion, the move would save billions of dollars for consumers and businesses – global energy demand could be halved, according to one estimate.

    For decades, electrification has been a nerdish backwater of global climate action. But in the last two weeks, at preparatory talks in Bonn before the forthcoming UN Cop31 climate summit, the subject finally took centre stage.

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  • Experts cast doubt on conclusion of government-funded study of factory emitting forever chemicals near Blackpool

    Questions have been raised about the conclusions drawn by a government-funded study into kidney cancer rates near a factory linked to forever chemicals near Blackpool.

    Pfoa, a known carcinogenic forever chemical that was banned globally in 2020, was emitted from the AGC Chemicals Europe plant in Thornton-Cleveleys, near Blackpool, between the 1950s and 2012. An estimated 49 tonnes of Pfoa were emitted during that period. The factory, which AGC Chemicals Europe bought in 1999, stopped using Pfoa in 2012.

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  • Move to dismantle $368m sea observatory initiative faced opposition from experts and lawmakers

    The Donald Trump administration has reversed its decision to dismantle a $368m deep-sea observation system following an outcry from lawmakers and ocean experts.

    On Thursday, the National Science Foundation announced that it would halt plans to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative, stating: “effective immediately, [it] will not proceed with further removal or descoping of equipment from the remaining arrays and will continue operations including planned maintenance”.

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  • Expansion could also hit access to housing, education, healthcare, open spaces and transport, analysis says

    Construction of a third runway at Heathrow is likely to have significant adverse effects on the health and wellbeing of up to 3 million people living nearby, an official report has said, as the government launched the next stage of its rapid airport expansion plan.

    An analysis for the Department for Transport (DfT) has found that expanding London’s hub airport could have “major adverse” impacts on the health of the most local population.

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  • Lanchester Wines in north-east England uses heat from a disused coalmine to maintain wine temperatures and with 23,000 flooded mines in the UK, there’s huge potential for more businesses and homes to follow its lead

    Shove them in a fridge, stash them in a cellar – this is how most people store their favourite bottles of wine. But if you have warehouses full of thousands of vintages, you have to think a little differently.

    For the last eight winters, Lanchester Wines has used heat from a disused coalmine to maintain ideal storage temperatures at its facilities in the north-east of England, helping to prevent freezing or spoilage.

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  • As demand soars, the country’s mangrove forests and the livelihoods of shellfish gatherers are under threat from encroaching farms and unchecked pollution

    At low tide, Johana Carolina Cruz Potes steps into the mudflats around Isla Costa Rica, in Ecuador’s Jambelí Archipelago. Holding a bucket and a short metal hook, she probes the tangled roots of a mangrove patch, searching for conchanegra, black-shelled cockles, buried beneath the sludge.

    Cruz Potes has done this work since she was nine, when she first followed her father into the mud. But earning a living from shellfish gathering – often the only income for families here – has become harder as grounds shrink and catches decline.

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  • Veteran campaigner Robin Hanbury-Tenison is raising money for a research station near his home in Cornwall

    Pedalling on water for more than a hundred miles in a heatwave, pushed back by east winds and having to navigate 31 locks would be a challenge for anybody. But when that body is 90 years old, with a bad knee, failing balance and malfunctioning arms and shoulders, it’s a herculean feat.

    Rainforest campaigner Robin Hanbury-Tenison, 90, is pedalling 104 miles down the River Thames from Oxford to Richmond on a water-bike to raise money for a unique research station which is being built to study Britain’s temperate rainforest.

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