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Nature Watch

Nature Watch

Rue: a Paradox Plant

Published in Nature Watch

A plant family full of amazing magical promises!

Ruta graveolens, Humac on Hvar Island, flowering in June 2023
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Precious Birds: Saving Owls

Published in Nature Watch

The Scops Owl is a welcome visitor to Hvar Island every summer. Arriving between the middle of March or beginning of April its persistent single-note call is the hallmark of the warm season. 

Floof ready to fly...
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Birdwatching report Hvar Island: May - October 2024.

Published in Nature Watch

Reading Steve Jones' report earlier this year, keen birdwatcher Tomislav Sjekloća was inspired to check out the Dračevica pond and other parts of Hvar, and we are delighted he has shared his sightings with us.

Blue Rock Thrush near Fortica in Hvar Town
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Hvar birds, September 2024

Published in Nature Watch

In early September 2024 a birdwatching couple visited Hvar and we are delighted to report that their trip was reasonably fruitful!.

European Turtle Dove
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BATS: know, cherish and protect them!

Published in Nature Watch

In 2023 the honour of celebrating International Bat Night, which aims to raise people's awareness of the vital importance in our ecosystem, fell to the Krka National Park,which organised a superbly imaginative programme beside its exquisite Skradinski Buk Waterfall.

BATS: know, cherish and protect them!
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Orchids need care

Published in Nature Watch

Highlighting Croatia's wild orchids and the need to treat them with love and respect, the highly active and successful BIOM ASSOCIATION published an article in the spring of 2024 with a plea to pay attention to these fascinating and invaluable plants.

Orchis italica
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Orchids: Humble, Amazing, Delightful!

Published in Nature Watch

In 2023 on Hvar there were two special orchid finds by visiting experts from Zagreb, who located the endemic Ophrys pharia and the Himantoglossum robertianum.

Ophrys pharia, 'Forka'
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Re-wilding in Rovinj: success and failure

Published in Nature Watch

A visitor to Rovinj in June 2024 found much to admire in the eco-friendly Grand Park Hotel - alongside a major cause for concern.

Re-wilding in Rovinj: success and failure
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Birdwatch April - May 2024

Published in Nature Watch

We are delighted that Steve Jones paid the island a bird-watching visit this spring and has shared his sightings with us.

Bee-eater
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Eco Environment News feeds

  • ‘No water, no life’: Iraq’s Tigris River in danger of disappearing

    Unless urgent action is taken life will be fundamentally altered for the ancient communities who live on its banks

    As a leader of one of the oldest gnostic religions in the world, Sheikh Nidham Kreidi al-Sabahi must use only water taken from a flowing river, even for drinking.

    The 68-year-old has a long grey beard hanging over his simple tan robe and a white cap covering his equally long hair, which sheikhs are forbidden from cutting. He says he has never got ill from drinking water from the Tigris River and believes that as long as the water is flowing, it is clean. But the truth is that soon it may not be flowing at all.

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  • ‘We hate it. It’s desecration’: the real cost of HS2

    Ten years after I first followed the proposed route, I retraced my steps to see what life was like along the world’s most expensive, heavily delayed railway line

    Ten years ago, I walked the route of HS2, the 140-mile railway proposed to run from London to Birmingham, to discover what lay in its path. Nothing had actually been constructed of this, supposedly the first phase of a high-speed line going north. The only trace was the furtive ecological consultants mapping newts and bats and the train’s looming presence in the minds of those who lived along the route. For many, it was a Westminster vanity project, symbolising a country run against the interests of the many to line the pockets of the few. People whose homes were under threat of demolitionwere petitioning parliament, campaigning for more tunnels or hoping the project would collapse before their farms, paddocks and ancient woodlands were wiped out.

    The line, we were told a decade ago, would be completed by 2026. Like many of the early claims about the longest railway to be built in Britain since the Victorian era, that fact no longer stands. The fast train is running – very – late. The official finish date of 2033 was recently revised upwards. “The best guess is that it will begin with a ‘4’ when you can catch a train,” one well-informed observer told me. There’s similar uncertainty about its cost, but one thing is sure: it is catastrophically over budget. When complete, HS2 will almost certainly be the most expensive railway in the world. Nearly 20 years ago, HS1, the line from the Channel tunnel to St Pancras, was completed on time and on budget for £51m per mile (£87m in today’s prices). It was criticised for being twice as expensive as a high-speed route constructed in France. HS2 may cost almost £1bn per mile.

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  • This is another ‘ozone layer’ moment. Now, we must urgently target methane | Mia Mottley

    The oil and gas industry must be legally bound to cut methane emissions. With climate tipping points approaching, time is running out

    • Mia Mottley is the prime minister of Barbados

    The timing is brutal. Just as the world celebrates the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the Paris climate agreement this month, new evidence shows that the world is crashing through the main defence that was constructed against climate catastrophe.

    The three-year temperature average is – for the first time – set to exceed the Paris guardrail of 1.5C above preindustrial levels. According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2025 will join 2023 and 2024 as the three warmest since the Industrial Revolution, reflecting the accelerating pace of the climate crisis.

    Mia Mottley is the prime minister of Barbados

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  • Country diary: Here’s the charm of the goldfinch – we want them to be near us | Mark Cocker

    Hogshaw, Derbyshire: They’re in our paintings, in our folklore. A little opportunistic planting and I’ve got them in my garden

    As I cleared our garden of dead vegetation, including many old teasels, I realised that the latter were still shedding seeds and luring goldfinches to them. Not wishing to deprive winter birds of food, or myself of opportunity, I planted the stalks in a single grove, and set up a mobile hide. Within minutes, a kind of magic unfolded. Sulphur wings twittered as old plants swayed with their featherweight burdens and the pointed pink beaks jabbed relentlessly for food.

    Of all European birds, goldfinches are surely those best able to illustrate the survival of magical thinking in our world. Throughout the middle ages and the Renaissance, more than 300 artists across 486 works – including those of Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo – painted Madonna and Child images with goldfinches secreted in them.

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  • Glaciers to reach peak rate of extinction in the Alps in eight years

    Climate crisis forecast to wipe out thousands of glaciers a year globally, threatening water supplies and cultural heritage

    Glaciers in the European Alps are likely to reach their peak rate of extinction in only eight years, according to a study, with more than 100 due to melt away permanently by 2033. Glaciers in the western US and Canada are forecast to reach their peak year of loss less than a decade later, with more than 800 disappearing each year by then.

    The melting of glaciers driven by human-caused global heating is one of the clearest signs of the climate crisis. Communities around the world have already held funeral ceremonies for lost glaciers, and a Global Glacier Casualty List records the names and histories of those that have vanished.

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  • Chances of EU trucking industry hitting zero emissions targets are dire, says industry body

    Only 10,000 out of economic bloc’s 6m trucks are electric and are more likely to be operating on short routes

    The chances of the European trucking industry hitting zero emissions targets are “dire”, an industry body has warned, as it emerged that only a tiny amount of lorries delivering goods in the EU are electric.

    Speaking as the European Commission prepares to water down electric car targets, the boss of the association for commercial vehicles called on the commission to commit to an urgent review of the sector, tackling problems including a lack of public charging points, a lack of tax breaks for trucks and high energy costs.

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  • Tabletop tomatoes and drought-resistant roses tipped as 2026’s top garden trends

    RHS predicts big shift in gardening habits as green-fingered Britons adapt to climate breakdown

    Bouquets of cut flowers will be swapped for tabletop vegetable plants next year, the Royal Horticultural Society has said, as the UK charity announces its top plant trend predictions for 2026.

    Mini-planters of aubergines, chillies, peppers and tomatoes will be displayed in homes instead of flowers, as breeders develop dwarf varieties that are decorative and capable of supplementing the weekly shop, the RHS says.

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  • The trauma after the storm: Hurricane Melissa leaves trail of emotional devastation across Jamaica

    Experts are calling for the integration of mental health into climate-disaster policy in the Caribbean as studies show that PTSD risks increase after hurricanes and displacement

    When Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica on 28 October with 185mph winds, destroying homes, hospitals and infrastructure, killing 32 people and affecting 1.5 million, Toni-Jan Ifill immediately realised it would leave many with long-term traumatic memories.

    A month and a half after the storm, which also affected eastern Cuba, the clinical psychologist says recollections of the terrifying winds also haunt some of the staff at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston. Even the sound of rain can cause trauma responses among people who lived through it.

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  • Carbon capture was spruiked as a way of limiting our emissions – but has Australia been greenwashed?

    Despite billions in investment and backing from the federal government, carbon capture and storage technology ‘should be in no way treated as a climate solution’, critics say

    The US energy company Chevron describes it as the world’s largest industrial carbon dioxide injection project of its kind. But it has a problem. It still isn’t working as promised and the results are getting worse.

    The $3bn Gorgon carbon capture and storage (CCS) development, on Barrow Island off Western Australia’s Pilbara coast, was supposed to start operating in 2016, backed by $60m in federal government funding. Chevron and its partners in the project, including Shell and ExxonMobil, said it would capture up to 4m tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from an underwater gas field each year and inject it in a reservoir more than 2km beneath the island.

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  • Too fancy? Not rugged enough? Or a mainstream sweet spot? We took Australia’s cheapest EV ute out for a day

    Jessica O’Bryan puts the $60,000 Musso EV through its paces in suburban Sydney and finds some pluses, some minuses – but no charging points

    When I am handed the keys to Australia’s first affordable fully electric ute, to say I feel nervous is an understatement.

    I’ve been driving a 2014 Volkswagen Polo for the past four years, and before that, a Holden Astra that was older than me.

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