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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

Caring for Hvar's Environment

Published in Environment

What inspired ECO HVAR for the environment

Caring for Hvar's Environment
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Bird Names

Published in Environment

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

Pied wagtail, December 2015.
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Hvar's Wildflower Treasures

Published in Environment

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. 

Hvar's Wildflower Treasures
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Perilous Pesticides

Published in Environment

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

Perilous Pesticides
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Glyphosate - GBH

Published in Environment

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

Glyphosate - GBH
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Orchids, Dalmatia's Secret Treasures

Published in Environment

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

Orchids, Dalmatia's Secret Treasures
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Diocletian's Palace, A New Look

Published in Environment

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.

The Peristyle
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The Organic Alternative

Published in Environment

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

Organic cultivation, Vrboska April 2017
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Plants, crops, soil: Natural Protection

Published in Environment

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.

Field horsetail (Equisetum arvense)
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Rubbish Management 2018

Published in Environment

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.

Binning litter, do it right!
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Starigrad Plain: Our Survey

Published in Environment

 

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.

Donkeys grazing on the Plain, 2nd June 2014.
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Eco Environment News feeds

  • British swallowtail split from European cousins much earlier than thought, study finds

    Finding that Norfolk butterfly has been distinct subspecies for 200,000 years could transform conservation approach

    The endangered swallowtail butterfly Papilio machaon britannicus, which is only regularly found breeding in Britain on the Norfolk Broads, has been a distinct subspecies for at least 200,000 years, according to a study.

    Smaller, darker in colour and much rarer than the continental swallowtail, britannicus was previously considered to have developed its distinctive form during its confinement in the wetlands of eastern England over the last 8,000 years, after the flooding of Doggerland.

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  • From ‘heat panic’ to ‘sacrificed at the altar’: Europe’s air conditioning culture wars heat up

    Cooling down has become political amid record highs, as experts say row is distracting from work of protecting lives

    As the afternoon heat rose to a dizzying 41.7C (107F) in eastern Brandenburg on Sunday, taking German temperatures to unprecedented highs, Mario, 65, took precautions but did not panic. Two years ago, a fierce heatwave had prompted him to buy a powerful device that few Germans own: an air conditioning unit.

    “The summers are slowly getting warmer,” says the retired handyman in Neuzelle on the German-Polish border, whose bungalow is now among the 6% of German homes with fixed air-conditioning. “And as you get older, the heat gets harder to endure.”

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  • ‘They ate the shrimp, they even ate the crab’: Thai fishers count the cost of a voracious invader

    Huge numbers of blackchin tilapia, a fish native to west Africa, are wreaking havoc among Thailand’s river ecosystems. Experts – and some chefs – are seeking sustainable solutions

    The menu at Kor-Tae seafood restaurant, in Thailand’s Samut Prakan province, is filled with Thai classics – from tom yum talay, a fragrant hot and sour soup, to spicy larb salads. But the restaurant’s chef is also experimenting with a more controversial ingredient: blackchin tilapia.

    “People are hesitant, but once they try it – [they say] it’s delicious,” says owner Adisorn Jamsuksaward, who has been offering the non-native fish free of charge to friends who request it.

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  • Birdsong data from Merlin ID app to help global biodiversity project

    Cornell Lab for Ornithology plans data linkup between app and population monitoring on eBird platform

    The Merlin bird ID app will allow users to feed real-time bird identifications into one of the world’s biggest citizen-science biodiversity projects in an update it is hoped will aid conservation of at-risk birds.

    Since 2021, the free Merlin app, created by the Cornell Lab for Ornithology, has used machine learning to provide an almost instantaneous sound-identification service for birdsong, along with an image for each bird identified. In future, the detections of bird species recorded by people will be automatically collected on the global online database eBird, which contains more than 2bn bird observation records.

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  • Hunting the tardigrade: one small step in sequencing DNA of all life on Earth

    As this year’s invertebrate of the year competition launches, we join scientists studying last year’s winner

    Witek Morek is closely inspecting an old brick-and-flint wall on the Cambridgeshire campus of the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

    “We are going to use a very advanced tool designed by bioengineers and evolved over millions of years – the human hand – and grab some moss, and put it in an envelope,” he says.

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  • Listen to Britain’s dawn chorus of 1976: the dramatic loss of birdsong in 50 years

    Guardian recreates audio landscape of past filled by loud morning symphony before 73m wild birds were lost

    Imagine a deafening abundance of birdsong so loud it wakes your children at dawn; the chirrup of house sparrows, the chattering of starlings, the melody of the wren, and the clear high-pitched flute of blackbirds saturating the garden, reverberating around your local park, dominating your neighbourhood from early morning to evening twilight.

    So loud is the song of the thrush that the naturalist and ornithologist WH Hudson wrote in 1919 that he was grateful when observing one that it was perched on a tree at a distance from his home, “so that when I woke at half past three or four o’clock, the shrill indefatigable voice came in at the open window, softened by distance and washed by the dewy atmosphere to greater purity”.

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  • Country diary: Our pond is a year old – already dragonflies are emerging | Nic Wilson

    Hitchin, Hertfordshire: The broad-bodied chaser is often the first to arrive at a new pond, and sure enough, I spot an exuvia clinging to a leaf blade

    The hole in the nest box on our house wall is all mouth. A sparrow chick on the cusp of fledging has thrust its head out, beak open, displaying an orange gape ringed with a creamy-yellow flange. It’s an unmissable prompt for the parents: Insert Invertebrates Here.

    I’m watching the spuggies from behind the pond, where I’m perfectly positioned to see the aftermath of another emergence. At the top of a bur-reed, the hollow legs of a dragonfly exuvia (the shed larval casing) grip the leaf blade, while a split in the cuticle shows where the adult has pushed through its exoskeleton.

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  • Empty reservoirs, ladybirds and sunstroke: remembering the UK heatwave of 1976

    As Britain reached its hottest June temperature on record, readers recall the summer when temperatures hit 36C

    The recent heatwave in the UK broke the previous June record of 35.6C, recorded during the 1976 heatwave.

    In Lingwood, Norfolk, a provisional temperature of 37.7C was recorded on Friday 26 June, breaking the previous record reached on 28 June 1976 and on 29 June 1957.

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  • Why put solar panels on green space when we could put them over car parks?

    The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions considers a hot topic within renewable energy

    This week’s replies: Are there places on Earth where humans haven’t been?

    I would like to know why we build solar farms over green space, when we could just put them over massive car parks as a popular current internet meme suggests. Chris, Middlesbrough

    Post your answers (and new questions) below or send them tonq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday.

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  • Not cool: the air conditioning scams offering fake deals in the heatwave

    By using websites copied from stores such as Aldi, fraudsters hope hot and bothered buyers will miss the red flags

    With the UK heatwave expected to increase temperatures over the next week, you decide to invest in an air conditioning unit. But they are expensive, and stocks are running out in the shops as everyone else has had the same idea.

    After a quick search, you see that there are other options online, and some from names that you recognise.

    Continue reading...

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