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.
Herbal medicine has a long tradition in Croatia and is still much in use today. A new detailed handbook aims to promote awareness of the natural resources which can benefit human health.
The trees which adorn Jelsa have marked significant changes in Jelsan culture and attitudes to the environment over time. Vito Gospodnetić is a dedicated protector of Jelsa's precious natural resources alongside its cultural and historical heritage.
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!
Well summer is over, birding-wise, and during the last three months, hopefully, birds have bred successfully on the island. I have certainly seen evidence of this, particularly recently, with good numbers of House Sparrows all around. Also frequently during the summer months I have seen birds carrying food to nests.
The summer months were intensely hot. By June 12th there was very little about. On a trip to the pond that morning I found that the biggest area was about to evaporate later that day– there was a tiny little pool with the remaining fish all gasping. Equally I saw a Cormorant, probably stocking up with an easy source of food.
Steve Jones from Dol continues his study of the island's birds. Anyone who is seeing or hearing anything of interest in the bird world is invited to contact him at: hmws.45@virgin.net
Hvar in May is a delight of wild flowers, with brilliant colours all around in the many parts of the island where nature is allowed to flourish unhindered.
This morning, May Day, I heard my first golden oriole of this year. Known in Croatian as 'vuga', the golden oriole is easier to hear than to catch a glimpse of.
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.
IMPORTANT NOTICE! We have invested a large amount of care and money over several years in setting up our feeding stations. We have designed and financed the cat hutches and placed them in locations with permission from the property owners. This is how they work:
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...
A harrowing incident the night before the major celebration in Honour of the Homeland provided an example of two opposite attitudes: irresponsible dog owners versus selfless saviours of a helpless kitten.
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.
Examples of the biocides (chemical insecticides) used for fogging actions to control adult mosquitoes, citing their active ingredients and possible adverse effects.
After many years of observing the practice of the Croatian national insect suppression programme, we have come to the conclusion that the time has come for the Inspectors to investigate the situation and to institute (we hope) safer methods.
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'.
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.
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.
Public health authority says 2,025 excess deaths probably an underestimate and that it expects toll to rise further
The number of deaths recorded in France surged by nearly 30% during the hottest week of the record-breaking heatwave that scorched much of Europe last month, the public health authority has said, adding that it expected the toll to rise further.
Public Health France said on Friday there had been “an increase of 29.1%, corresponding to 2,025 additional deaths compared with the previous week”. It said the figure was probably an underestimate and “mortality will rise further”.
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”.
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.
Participant-led YPS scheme creates green projects while providing summer jobs in country with high youth unemployment
Oona Verveld and Clara Vikberg have just secured their first paid summer jobs. While their peers are mostly limited to entry-level positions in retail or fast-food restaurants, the 18-year-olds are some of the first among their generation to have landed a new type of role: young planetary stewards.
“Someone came up with the simple idea that, since young people clearly need jobs, why not create them?” says My Sellberg, the project manager and programme lead for regenerative development at Upplandsbygd, a non-profit based north of Stockholm. “The strongest objective was to inspire hope for the future among our young residents.”
In one area 76% of fishing boats were followed, with baby dolphins learning the technique from their parents
Bottlenose dolphins in the Adriatic are increasingly following trawlers to scavenge for food, with baby dolphins learning the technique from their parents, a study has found.
“These days the easiest way to find [bottlenose dolphins] is to look for trawlers,” said Giovanni Bearzi, a co-author of the study and the president of Dolphin Biology and Conservation in Italy. “Many of them are followed by the dolphins that go to forage and scavenge in their wake.
Shifting demands and political ideology have left the industry vulnerable to global competition from cheap Chinese cars
Earlier this month, an intriguing new Detroit-based electric vehicle startup hit the market – Slate Auto, a Jeff Bezos-backed venture offering something US buyers rarely see these days – a pick up truck billed as “affordable”.
Its base price is $24,950, making it one of the lowest-cost autos in the US market and close to half the price of the average new vehicle. But as the US contends with sharply rising auto costs, even Slate may be getting left behind in the global electric vehicle (EV) transition. The global EV industry is entering a golden age powered by cheap Chinese cars that can be bought for as little as $10,000.
Kitchen scraps and garden waste can be a valuable resource. But some communities are forgoing the Fogo bin and collecting their own compost
Change by degrees offers life hacks and sustainable living tips each Saturday to help reduce your household’s carbon footprint
Got a question or tip for reducing household emissions? Email us at changebydegrees@theguardian.com
There is a rising stink around rubbish removal in Australia. Councils around the country are looking for ways to divert more organic waste away from landfill.
Australians generate about 14.6m tonnes of organic waste each year – mostly garden clippings, food scraps and timber. About half of it is collected from households in kerbside bins.
In this week’s newsletter: Activists are accusing the government of privatising the coastline to support the country’s thriving tourism industry, at the expense of locals
Every year, millions of visitors from across the globevisit Jamaica to enjoy its gorgeous beaches, fuelling a multibillion dollar tourism industry. But, in recent years, its picture-perfect coastlines have become a battleground for access after successive governmentsprivatised its shorelines to support the country’s thriving all-inclusive hotel industry.
The complex row, which has seen protesters clashing with police and campaigners tearing down barriers around privatised properties, is now playing out in the country’s courts. We take a closer look at each side’s case, and what’s at stake.
Deep in the mountains of Palawan, Conservation International scientists are capturing what few people ever see: the secret lives of the Philippines’ rarest species.
At Maido — the Lima restaurant recently crowned the best in the world — one of the star dishes is paiche, a giant prehistoric river fish.Its journey to the table begins on a small family farm deep in Peru’s Amazon.
“Jane Goodall forever changed how people think about, interact with and care for the natural world,” said Daniela Raik, interim CEO of Conservation International.
After decades of negotiation, the high seas treaty is finally reality. The historic agreement will pave the way to protect international waters which face numerous threats.
The ocean is engine of all life on Earth, but human-driven climate change is pushing it past its limits. Here are five ways the ocean keeps our climate in check — and what can be done to help.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. These pictures might be worth even more. An initiative featuring the work of some of the world’s best nature photographers raises money for environmental conservation.
