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Nature Watch

Nature Watch

"BEE HAPPY" 2022.

Published in Nature Watch

Hvar's first observation beehive, celebrating World Bee Day, May 20th 2022.

"BEE HAPPY" workshop
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Brief Nature Watch, Spring 2022

Published in Nature Watch

Nature watcher Steve Jones paid a short visit to Hvar in April.

Hvar mongoose
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Beware: caterpillars processing!

Published in Nature Watch

The caterpillars of the pine processionary moth (thaumetopoea pityocampa) come out any time between February and April each year.

Pine processionary moth caterpillar nest
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Luki finds the first Orchids!

Published in Nature Watch

Luki is one of Hvar's happiest dogs, and one of Hvar's greatest nature-lovers. On March 15th, he sniffed out early orchids not far from Vrboska. 

Orchids, 15th March 2020.
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Hvar's Springtime Treats

Published in Nature Watch

Sunshine, mild weather and some occasional outbursts of rain are bringing Hvar's spring on at great speed.

Gomiljasta perunika
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Saving Wildlife and Biodiversity: Looking to the Future

Published in Nature Watch

November 2019 saw the launch of the European Citizens' Initiative petition under the title 'Save Bees and Farmers'.

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Dragonflies and Damselflies

Published in Nature Watch

These delicate-looking, exquisite creatures play an important part in the natural chain. They are especially useful to humans because of their voracious appetite for mosquitoes and other biting insects such as midges.

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Birdwatch, June - July 2019

Published in Nature Watch

Steve Jones of Dol recounts his observations during June and July 2019, a mixture of some disappointments balanced by unexpected joys, including a couple of bird rescues!

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Dead bats in Pitve, July 2019

Published in Nature Watch

Two dead bats lying close together on their doorstep were a sad surprise which greeted a couple in Pitve on the morning of July 24th 2019.

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Eco Environment News feeds

  • £3.5m of Tory donations linked to pollution and climate denial, says report

    Millions given to party and MPs last year came from entities linked to fossil fuels, high-polluting industries and climate denial

    The Conservative party received £3.5m from individuals and entities linked to climate denial, fossil fuels and high-pollution industries last year, according to new analysis.

    The climate website DeSmog analysed Electoral Commission records, which show that the party and its MPs received funds from the aviation and construction industries, mining and oil interests, and individuals linked to the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a thinktank which has denied the legitimacy of climate science.

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  • Plants emit ultrasonic sounds in rapid bursts when stressed, scientists say

    Thirsty or damaged plants produce up to 50 staccato pops in an hour, which nearby creatures may respond to, researchers find

    There comes a time in a plant’s life when the head sags, the leaves go pale and the body releases a barrage of sounds that are the ultrasonic equivalent of stamping on bubble wrap.

    While any gardener is familiar with the wilting and discoloration that comes with drought, a shortage of water or a sudden wound can also prompt plants to produce staccato pops, which nearby creatures may respond to, scientists say.

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  • United Nations adopts landmark resolution on climate justice

    Resolution hailed as ‘win for climate justice of epic proportions’ should make it easier to hold countries accountable for failures

    A UN resolution was adopted on Wednesday that should make it easier to hold polluting countries legally accountable for failing to tackle the climate emergency, in a vote which was hailed as a historic victory for climate justice.

    The UN general assembly adopted by consensus the resolution spearheaded by Vanuatu, a tiny Pacific island nation vulnerable to extreme climate effects, and youth activists to secure a legal opinion from the international court of justice (ICJ) to clarify states’ obligations to tackle the climate crisis – and specify any consequences countries should face for inaction.

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  • The Guardian view on a water crisis: targets need to be binding | Editorial

    The global response to an escalating water crisis is belated and inadequate. But last week’s UN conference was an important marker

    The more than 700 pledges that emerged from the UN water conference, which concluded last weekend, were an insufficient response to the worsening global water crisis. But the scientific panel that the UN has committed to create, along with a new water envoy, should help bring greater clarity and raise awareness of the multiplying risks. These include sea level rises, floods, droughts and other extreme weather caused by global heating, and the lack of access of about 2 billion people to clean drinking water. The trouble is that the commitments made by attenders – who included very few world leaders – are voluntary and unenforceable. Given the broken climate pledges of the past, there is every reason to worry that the promises will not be kept.

    Many participants in the three days of talks in New York were angered by the prominent role played by corporations, including manufacturers who are heavy users of water, and the lack of representation of grassroots organisations from the poorer countries that are the worst affected. As with recent reports of the influence of oil companies in US universities, there are growing concerns about the ways in which businesses are seeking to shape environmental legislation, and public understanding of the threats, to promote their own short-term economic interests.

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  • Barcelona green space plan could improve health of 30,000, study finds

    Creating more green areas could also save up to £40m a year in costs linked to mental health issues, say researchers

    An ambitious push to create more green spaces in Barcelona – a city with one of the highest population and traffic densities in Europe – could improve the health of more than 30,000 people, reduce the use of antidepressants and save up to €45m (£40m) annually in costs associated with mental health issues, research suggests.

    It builds on a growing body of evidence that has linked urban green spaces to better mental wellbeing as well as the prevention of depression, anxiety and insomnia.

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  • Switzerland and France accused of lack of climate action in ECHR hearing

    Group of Swiss women and French ex-mayor suing their governments in first such cases heard by rights court

    The governments of Switzerland and France have been accused of breaching the human rights of their citizens by not acting decisively enough on climate change, at a landmark legal hearing in Strasbourg.

    A panel of judges at the European court of human rights heard petitions from a group of Swiss women and a French former mayor seeking to bolster climate action in their countries. Although climate litigation has spread quicklyaround the world, these are the first such cases to be heard by the ECHR.

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  • Melting Antarctic ice predicted to cause rapid slowdown of deep ocean current by 2050

    New research by Australian scientists suggests 40% slowdown in just three decades could alter world’s climate for centuries

    Melting ice around Antarctica will cause a rapid slowdown of a major global deep ocean current by 2050 that could alter the world’s climate for centuries and accelerate sea level rise, according to scientists behind new research.

    The research suggests if greenhouse gas emissions continue at today’s levels, the current in the deepest parts of the ocean could slow down by 40% in only three decades.

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  • UK is Europe’s worst private jet polluter, study finds

    UK tops all league tables for highly polluting form of travel, with a flight taking off every six minutes last year

    The UK is the private jet capital of Europe, with more flights than anywhere else on the continent, analysis has found.

    Last year, a private jet set off from the UK once every six minutes, putting the country ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to the extremely polluting form of travel. Many of these journeys have been called “polluting and pointless” by Greenpeace, as they are so short they could have easily been taken by train – and in one case, cycled in 30 minutes.

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  • US puts Italy-sized chunk of Gulf of Mexico up for auction for oil drilling

    In latest blow to Joe Biden’s reputation as the ‘climate president’, 73.3m acres of the gulf will be offered for fossil fuel extraction

    An enormous swathe of the Gulf of Mexico, spanning an area the size of Italy, was put up for auction on Wednesday for oil and gas drilling, in the latest blow to Joe Biden’s increasingly frayed reputation on dealing with the climate crisis.

    The president’s Department of the Interior offered up a vast area of the central and western Gulf, including plunging deep water reaches, for drilling projects that will stretch out over decades, despite scientists’ urgent warnings that fossil fuels must be rapidly phased out if the world is to avoid disastrous global heating. The auctions also come despite Biden’s own pre-election promise to halt all drilling on federal lands and waters.

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  • Country diary: The old oaks won’t believe it’s spring until they see it | Paul Evans

    The Marches, Montgomeryshire: The ones here, at the home of rebel leader Owain Glyndŵr, know how to wait till the coast is clear

    There is a moment when the old oaks hold fast to winter. Their centuries taught them about betrayal: sunshine before the lash of hail whips round the hill; sweet birdsong stiff with frost, late snows and other silences. They are reluctant to unclench buds, hesitant to loosen pollen smoke. That day, when the vernal equinox tips into the light, and we wind clocks forwards to return a stolen hour; when timbers shiver with a pulse that opens up the leaves across the land; is that now?

    Sycharth is a green ring in the valley a mile, as the crow flies, across the border into Montgomeryshire, Powys. It is a circular earthwork of a motte around the central mound of a bailey under a wooded hillside by the Cynllaith brook. On the ring are oaks and in the oaks are histories, and of those histories, the one about Owain Glyndŵr is the most famous.

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Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds

  • Gordon Moore, digital pioneer and philanthropist, dies at 94

    Digital pioneer, business leader and philanthropist Gordon Moore died at his home in Hawaiʻi on March 24. While Moore was best known as a titan of the tech world, his contributions to the natural world were equally pathbreaking.

  • 3 things our experts loved in March

    Conservation International is powered by 1,500 people in more than 30 countries — their interests, like their hometowns, are all over the map. In this monthly feature, we highlight three things that kept our experts busy while off the clock.

  • After nearly 50 years, water back on the global agenda

    This week, the United Nations holds its first global freshwater conference in nearly 50 years. In the years since, the global population has doubled — yet the challenges facing the health of, and access to, freshwater resources have been largely overshadowed by the climate and biodiversity crises.

  • Experts see hope in gloomy climate report

    Humanity is set to blow past 1.5°C of planetary warming by the early 2030s, according to a new report released today by the U.N. But the report also offers hope in the form of actions that could avert the worst impacts of climate change.

  • Study: Patterns of wildlife 'range loss' could offer clues for conservation

    More than one million species are at risk of extinction largely because they are being pushed out of places where they have long lived — known as “ranges.” But not all range loss looks the same.

  • Why a new treaty to protect the high seas is a ‘game-changer’

    Roughly two-thirds of the world’s oceans lie beyond national boundaries in an area known as the “high seas” — yet only about 1 percent of that largely unexplored expanse has been protected. Now, nearly 200 countries have agreed on the first-ever United Nations treaty to protect the high seas.

  • What on Earth is ‘HFLD’? (Hint: It’s about forests)

    From “blue carbon” to “ecosystem services,” environmental jargon is everywhere. Conservation International looks to make sense of it in an occasional explainer series. In this installment, we explore the role “HFLDs,” play in storing climate-warming carbon.

  • On carbon offsets, Wirecutter story doesn’t cut it

    A recent article claims that buying carbon offsets for your flight doesn't help the climate crisis. This conclusion is bafflingly wrong: Paying to protect an area of forest to offset the climate footprint of your flight does in fact — demonstrably and verifiably — help.

  • The year ahead: Climate change is here. Nature can help

    For millions of people around the world who are learning to survive in the face of droughts, floods and more frequent storms, climate change is not a future problem — it’s here now. Nature can be a powerful ally in adapting to these impacts.

  • News spotlight: A climate hero emerges — beavers

    Increasing drought and urban expansion have contributed to the destruction and degradation of 35 percent of the world’s wetlands. How might we stymie this decline? Introducing beavers back into their natural habitats is a good start.

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