Testing people on Hvar Island for pesticides via hair samples is an ongoing project, conducted by Eco Hvar. These are the preliminary results from the Kudzu laboratory which tested for 60 pesticides in 2021 and 100 as from 2022.
Note: the only person to test negative for the presence of pesticides routinely uses ozone to treat foodstuffs which are not produced organically.
Ozone treatment for chicken
Pesticides per person:
(Note: be aware there are many more pesticides in use on Hvar and in Croatia generally which were not included in the testing!)
Date of analysisIndividualPlace of residenceNumber of pesticides present
ISOPROTURON - phenylurea herbicide. EU: not approved; [ECHA application for approval for film preservatives (PT07) and construction material preservatives (PT10) in progress, August 2023]
1. analysis 17.07.2023 - (fem. 1988) Pitve
LINDANE (HCH-gamma) - organochlorine insecticide. EU / ECHA: not approved
For details of the pesticide substances identified, with their possible adverse effects, related pesticidal products and approval status, please see 'Pesticides and their adverse effects'.
Note: The list of pesticides tested did not include all the pesticides used on Hvar, so it is possible that more pesticides might be found in a wider range of tests. We did not test for the presence of glyphosate.
Lots of dogs have a tough time on Hvar and in other parts of Croatia. Helping dogs in need can be tricky. These are basic guidelines to help show you what can and can't be done.
Poisons, definitely not! Eco Hvar's campaign against the indiscriminate use of chemical pesticides to kill off unwanted insects and other 'pests' began many years ago.
As July progresses, the grapes ripen on the vines, ready to reach their full luscious ripeness later on in August. However, foraging is not recommended.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Local dialects are spoken less and less, so every effort to retain their special charm is welcome. From Pitve on Hvar Island, poetess Ičica Barišić has been preserving the particular dialect of her village for many years.
We are delighted to report that the Recycling Yard for the Jelsa Municipality is now functioning, after a long period of 'teething problems'. This is good news for everyone who cares about the environment. We hope all residents and visitors will be encouraged to manage waste of all kinds responsibly.
An appeal from the heart for happy wagging tails! The Bestie Foundation is in urgent need of financial help, and here are twelve good reasons for supporting it.
In an event of huge significance to the Catholic population of the island, relics of St. John Paul II were brought to the parishes of Vrisnik and Pitve in September 2021, thanks to parish priest Don Robert Bartoszek.
"My connection to Croatia is unbreakable. I feel it as a cord of turquoise and rosemary and cicadas and curry plants, from my heart to that island. I feel blessed every single day to have Croatia in my heart."
Church bells are part of daily life all over Croatia. Splitska on Brač Island is one of the few places where the bells are rung by hand and not electronically controlled.
The exhibition of Croatia's cultural heritage as recognized on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List reflects Hvar's wealth of prized assets and traditions.
Jelsa's Elementary School is outstanding in promoting worthwhile extra-curricular activities. Photography is one which gives pupils a special experience of the world around them.
The replanting project to rejuvenate Hvar's woodlands with autochthonous black pines continued at the end of January, backed by a mobile exhibition highlighting the importance of trees for the island.
Dr.Radoslav Bužančić's London lecture entitled ‘Diocletian’s Palace in Split: New Discoveries’ aroused great interest among experts in archaeology, architecture, history of art, museology and the protection of cultural monuments and heritage.
In response to a request from Hvar's registered charity Dignitea, the EC has sent a full explanation of the regulations which should be applied to the proposed oil and gas drilling in the Adriatic.
Eco Hvar is sometimes criticized for doing too little - or even nothing - to help the island's innumerable needy cats and kittens. In fact there are lots of residents around the island, locals and incomers, who consistently do their utmost to help.
Lucky Luki revels joyfully in his explorations of Hvar's boundless beauties. The Galešnik fortress in the hill to the south above Jelsa is one of his regular haunts.
There's nothing Luki likes better than exploring the lesser known areas of Hvar Island. The eastern region is largely overlooked and (mercifully) underdeveloped, so it is perfect territory for Luki and his friends.
This is the story of a pony who has captivated the hearts of all around him in the quiet inland village of Svirče on Hvar. He is a walking symbol of unconditional love!
From Skittish Stari Grad Street Dog to Alpha Canine Queen of Dol, Sveta Ana. Evening Lategano of the Suncrokret Body and Soul Retreat in Dol tells the story of Maza's rescue.
Despite the local authorities' attempts to control mosquitoes with pesticides, many have complained that the mosquitoes on the island are more virulent than ever.
Query: It was a pleasant surprise to come across your article regarding olive oil making in Dalmatia. Me and my husband have taken it up as a serious hobby to be involved in the olive oil process in m...
I am staying at the Hotel Berulia in Brela and have been feeding a mother,father and five kittens about (10 weeks old). Do they get rid of the kittens in the winter when there are no guests?
We are currently visiting your lovely island and are staying in the Amfora Hotel. Since our arrival we have fallen in love with a beautiful stray young cat.
Hello I was staying in Hvar Town for 5 days last week in June 14 and we tried our best to care for the kittens, cats we have seen as they were so very skinny. What is keeping me awake at night back in...
Emma is one of the many animals rescued over the years through Eco Hvar. We are very grateful to Bernie for sharing this happy seasonal photo with us. To see more of his splendid artistic photography visit his website: https://www.hvar-mania.photography/"
Resulting from the successful European Citizens' Initiative Petition, in which 1,1 million Europeans asked for an end to pesticide use, there will be a hearing in the EU Parliament on January 24th 2023.
Due to the effects of the Covid-19 virus, in 2020 the Ministry of Tourism announced financial relief measures for those engaged in the tourist industry.
If someone filled a spray can with potentially deadly poisons and went round spraying people at random, everyone, including the police, would react to put a stop to it.
Letter sent to the Public Health authorities on 12th June 2024, following yet another scandalous example of irresponsible poison spraying against insects.
Towards the end of 2023, the European Parliament and the European Commission showed that they are not willing or able to protect European citizens from the ill-effects of chemical pesticides. So what needs to be done?
A listing of selected pesticides which are, or have been in common use in Croatia, with the official warnings of their side-effects and the known side-effects of their active constituents.
Testing people on Hvar Island for pesticides via hair samples is an ongoing project, conducted by Eco Hvar. These are the preliminary results from the Kudzu laboratory which tested for 60 pesticides in 2021 and 100 as from 2022.
This is a guide to the systems governing chemical pesticide regulation, registers and laws, with an overview of some of the many problems arising from pesticide use.
Chemical poison use is out of control in much of the modern world. Safeguards exist in theory, in practice they are inadequate. At each level of responsibility, practices need to be improved. These are our suggestions for achieving vital improvements.
For several years, the local councils of Jelsa, Stari Grad and Hvar have routinely sprayed the streets against mosquitoes, flies and other 'flying pests'. Is this a good thing?
Would I find myself driving home through a mist of toxic chemicals if I caught the 20:30 ferry back from Split? That was the question on 27th September 2017.
Because we at Eco Hvar are very concerned about the shortcomings of the mosquito liquidation programme on Hvar and around Croatia, we have petitioned the Minister for Health to re-consider the methods used.
Our request to Croatian local and national authorities to review the insect suppression programme has produced a lamentable response so far. It's hard getting the message across, but we will keep trying.
A bee sting can cause a severe allergic reaction in a vulnerable person. Under current Croatian law, insects which cause allergic reactions must be subjected to an annual programme of suppression.
The look of abject terror on the monkey's face is a haunting picture, the stuff of nightmares for anyone with an ounce of empathy for torture victims, whether human or animal. Animals are frontline victims of dangerous chemicals.
From October 1st 2016, the sale of Roundup (Croatian Cidokor) and 11 other similar glyphosate-based herbicides was banned in the European Union. The ban should serve as a wake-up call to all users, supporters and promoters of pesticides.
The manufacturers have claimed that the herbicide Roundup, whose active ingredient is glyphosate, is "safe enough to drink", and many people are naive enough to believe this.
When the World Health Organization defined Glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans”, it should have put an immediate stop to the sale and use of Glyphosate-based herbicides.
Donations can be made in euros, pounds sterling, US and Australian dollars and Swiss francs. All donations, however small, are very welcome. We acknowledge donations by email if we have the donor's address. Please let us know if you require a formal paper receipt.
PLEASE NOTE OUR NEW BANK DETAILS:
ECO HVAR BANK DETAILS
OTP banka d.d. Split, Domovinskog rata 61, 21000 Split;
If the payment slip has a box for 'further details' or 'further information' you should enter the Charity's OIB: 14009858487, and state 'donation' or 'donacija'.
A14 in Cambridgeshire promised biodiversity net gain of 11.5%, but most of the 860,000 trees planted are dead. What went wrong?
Lorries thunder over the A14 bridge north of Cambridge, above steep roadside embankments covered in plastic shrouds containing the desiccated remains of trees.
Occasionally the barren landscape is punctuated by a flash of green where a young hawthorn or a fledgling honeysuckle has emerged apparently against the odds, but their shock of life is an exception in the treeless landscape.
Combs Moss, Derbyshire: For 50 years, I have been coming here to see breeding waders, now gone or much diminished. We must find a way to arrest this decline
It’s one of my midsummer rituals, if the forecast is right, to climb on to the moorland tops and await sunset. I build in several secondary goals: check if there are lapwings still on eggs in the sheep pasture below the summit (just two); see if there are curlew pairs breeding in the heather (only three).
These exercises add to a personal dataset that is 50 years old. While I can confirm that, in all that time, snipes, curlews, lapwings and golden plovers have bred annually, both redshanks and dunlins have long gone and the other quartet is much diminished. As a result, Combs Moss is steeped in melancholy for me.
The women are raising larvae of the endangered Taylor’s checkerspot for release into the wild
Trista Egli was standing in a greenhouse, tearing up strips of plantain and preparing to feed them to butterfly larvae.
Of the many things the team here has tried to tempt larvae of the Taylor’s checkerspot – a native of the Pacific north-west – with, it is the invasive English plantain they seem to love the most.
UK to launch safety study into DIY ‘plug-in’ systems such as Germany’s Balkonkraftwerk as part of plan to triple solar capacity by 2030
From herb boxes and flower pots to washing lines and hanging baskets, residents of Madrid, Berlin and other European cities are well versed at making the most of their compact balconies – even generating power for wifi, the kettle and the TV.
“Balcony solar” allows urbanites to install a small number of panels in the tight space outside apartments, which generate electricity that can be used for the household. Soon flat owners and renters in the UK could be able to use the same “plug-in” technology, which is currently prohibited.
Rise in sightings prompts call for ban on soil imports, to prevent entry of more species that eat earthworms and degrade soil
They have been invading the UK for years; small mucus-covered animals which hunt in gardens, allotments and greenhouses.
The number of sightings of non-native flatworms has risen sharply over the past few years, and experts have warned they can decimate earthworm populations and degrade soil quality.
In an Arctic reshaped by the climate crisis, less ice really means more as countries face risks in push for more ships
For millennia, a mass of sea ice in the high Arctic has changed with the seasons, casting off its outer layer in summer and expanding in winter as it spins between Russia, Canada and Alaska. Known as the Beaufort Gyre, this fluke of geography and oceanography was once a proving ground for ice to “mature” into thick sheets.
But no more. A rapidly changing climate has reshaped the region, reducing perennial sea ice. As ocean currents spin what is left of the gyre, chunks of ice now clog many of the channels separating the northern islands.
When Antonio Tricarico was summoned to his local police station in October and told he was being investigated for defamation, he was stressed but not shocked. Months earlier, Tricarico, the director of the Italian environment NGO ReCommon, had filed a joint legal challenge against the country’s biggest oil company, Eni, which he knew had a history of using lawyers to clamp down on critics.
The company had previously limited itself to civil defamation lawsuits, including against ReCommon, but in Tricarico’s case it initiated criminal proceedings over statements he had made in a television interview.
Following the destruction from 2010’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill, an anti-drilling coalition took action with HB 1143 – and got it signed by DeSantis
The giant and catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also known as the BP oil spill, didn’t reach Apalachicola Bay in 2010, but the threat of oil reaching this beautiful and environmentally valuable stretch of northern Florida’s Gulf coast was still enough to devastate the region’s economy.
The Florida state congressman Jason Shoaf remembers how the threat affected the bay.
Climate change, development, labor shortages and tariffs are making life the pits for the state’s cherry farmers
Nearly 100 years ago, north-west Michigan cherry farmers and Traverse City community leaders started a festival to promote the city and their region’s tart cherry crop as a tourist destination.
Now known as the “cherry capital of the world”, Traverse City’s National Cherry Festival draws 500,000 visitors over eight days to this picturesque Lake Michigan beach town to enjoy carnival rides and airshows, and to eat cherries. It also sparked a thriving agrotourism industry amid its rolling hills that now boasts dozens of shops, wineries, U-pick orchards, and farm-to-table restaurants helmed by James Beard-award-winning chefs.
Logging, drug trafficking and the climate crisis endanger the world’s largest isolated Indigenous group, on the border with Brazil
In 1999, Beatriz Huertas, then a young anthropologist, travelled deep into the Peruvian Amazon to investigate reports of uncontacted Indigenous peoples. Along the Las Piedras River, people in Monte Salvado, a Yine Indigenous village, described how every summer, “aislados” – those who avoid sustained contact with outsiders – would appear across the river.
“They were coming into the fields and taking bananas,” says Huertas.
Former health secretary Matt Hancock denied claims the government's attempt to throw a protective ring around care homes in early 2020 was empty rhetoric.
For thousands of years, Mongolian nomads have herded across the country’s vast steppe grassland. But as Mongolia warms more than three times faster than the global average, their future is in question.
After more than a decade of work led by Indigenous communities, one of the most unique corners of Amazonia has been officially protected by the Peruvian government.
Years ago, construction of a road cut off the flow of water to a mangrove forest in Mexico, depriving these coast-hugging trees of what they need to thrive and proving deadly for wildlife. But look closely today, and signs of life are beginning to reappear.
A jewel of the “Coral Triangle” just got a reprieve as Indonesia announced it revoked the mining permits of four companies operating in one of the most biodiverse marine ecosystems on Earth.
Hawai‘i lawmakers passed a groundbreaking bill that will impose a small tax on visitors in an effort to protect the islands from the growing risks of a warming planet.
Across the Indian and Pacific oceans, tiny atolls are facing an existential crisis. But not all islands are equally vulnerable — it comes down to ecosystem health.
“We need your creativity, we need your skills, we need your decency, we need your commitment to healing our planet,” said CEO M. Sanjayan during the commencement address at William & Mary.
