Eco Hvar - home for ecology on Hvar Island in Croatia

Welcome to the Eco-Hvar website

Welcome to the Eco-Hvar website!

Hvar Island on the Dalmatian coast in Croatia is one of the most beautiful places in the world. It has the makings of a paradise on earth. Islanders have long boasted of the clean air and sea, the pristine natural environment and the healthy lifestyle based on a good diet and outdoor living.

*Clear sea in Hvar harbour, July 2014. Photo: Vivian Grisogono*

Tourism is the island’s main economic activity. Hvar Town established the first professional tourist organization in Europe when the Hvar Health Society (Higijeničko društvo Hvar) was founded way back in 1868 under the leadership of Bishop Juraj Duboković. The Society’s aim was to attract guests to Hvar Town who could benefit from the climate, especially the mild winter, and the clean air. These ‘health tourists’ were well looked after by all accounts, with good food and healthy activities. They provided the foundation for Hvar’s enduring successful tourist industry.

The style of tourism has changed over the years. The basis of Hvar Island’s attractions remains the same. Many people still come to visit or stay here in order to enjoy the clean air, sea and countryside. No-one is disappointed in the natural beauty of the place. There are also other attractions, including the island's rich and colourful history and cultural heritage, not to mention the good food and high quality wines.

However, the island is not perfect. Certain aspects could and should be changed. There is a surprisingly high incidence of smoking- and diet-related illnesses on the island, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and lung problems. The doctors also have to deal with thyroid and hormonal disturbances, especially in young girls, and cancers in all age groups. The indications are that islanders need a better understanding of healthy lifestyle habits, also a clearer knowledge of the downside of using chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

For animal-lovers, the treatment of animals also gives cause for concern. There is no animal rescue facility on the island, and refuges for dogs and cats are urgently needed so proper care can be provided for homeless animals.

The registered not-for-profit charity Eco Hvar was founded in 2013 to help improve conditions for people, animals and the environment. You can read details of the charity's aims in each category on these links: Environment, Health, Animals. The overall ideal aim is to create a true earthly paradise on the exquisite Island of Hvar.

Eco Hvar is pleased to co-operate with like-minded organizations, and is a member of PAN Europe, and LAG Škoji, and a supporter of Zemljane staze - Earth Trek (Facebook page), Održivi otok ('Sustainable Island') (Facebook page), Dignitea (Facebook page) and Pokret otoka ('Island Movement')..

For comprehensive research and strategies for environmental protection, we follow and strongly recommend The Nature-based Solutions Initiative, which operates from the UK University of Oxford Departments of Biology and Geography.

The Eco-Hvar website contains original articles, information, references and links in keeping with the aims of Eco Hvar. All the material on the website is copyright, including the illustrations and photographs, and may not be reproduced or published in any form except with the copyright holders' written permission. However, you are welcome to copy or print out any of the articles for personal use only. For day-by-day topics of interest in keeping with Eco Hvar's aims, you can follow us on Facebook.

Media

For the Good of All!

Better Ways

Nature Watch

Highlights

About Animals

Forum items

Notices

Poisons: Be aware!

Donations

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;

Poslovnica Jelsa, 21465 Jelsa.

IBAN HR7024070001100727245; BIC OTPVHR2X
Account name: ECO HVAR

Account address: Pitve 93, 21465 Jelsa, Croatia

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'.

About The Site

The site contains articles and information on topics related to health, the environment and animal welfare.

While the focus is on Hvar Island in Dalmatia, much of the information is relevant to the rest of Croatia, and some to Europe, the United States and the rest of the world.

The main language of the site is English, but articles in Croatian are being added as quickly as possible. Some of the Croatian articles are translations, some original. Book reviews are in the language of the publication being reviewed.

To see all the articles archived in each category, click on the category name which is given below the title of each article (Environment, Highlights, Notices etc).

For further relevant news items and bits of interesting information, please refer to our Facebook page.

Thanks

We are very grateful to Željka Horvat Kozulić for kindly and expertly designing the ECO HVAR logo, also to Jelena Bunčuga, Petra Mimica, Bartul Mimica, Ivana Župan, Dinka Barbić and Josip Vlainić for their generous help in translating articles into Croatian.

Special thanks are also owed to Mihael Magdić of Orion Informatika i Trgovina, Varaždin, for his excellent and patient efforts in designing the website.

Eco Environment News feeds

As the UK prepares its next carbon budget, what needs to be included?

Expert recommendations will influence plans for energy, housing, transport industry and farming for decades
Labour will next week be confronted with stark policy choices that threaten to expose the fault lines between the Treasury and the government’s green ambitions, as advice for the UK’s next carbon budget is published.
Plans for the energy sector, housing, transport, industry and farming will all be called into question in a sweeping set of recommendations for how the UK can meet the legally binding target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Continue reading...
Outcry as Trump withdraws support for research that mentions ‘climate’

US government stripping funds from domestic and overseas research amid warnings for health and public safety
The Trump administration is stripping away support for scientific research in the US and overseas that contains a word it finds particularly inconvenient: “climate.”
The US government is withdrawing grants and other support for research that even references the climate crisis, academics have said, amid Donald Trump’s blitzkrieg upon environmental regulations and clean-energy development.
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Rolling back on climate actions may spell rise in preventable illness – study

Net zero policies would result in fewer deaths saving UK billions, say researchers
Countries that weaken or stop their net zero and climate actions may be consigning their populations to decades of preventable illness.
Gains from net zero are often presented as global benefits and mainly for future generations. But less fossil fuel use also means less air pollution which results in local health gains right away.
Continue reading...
Dark side of bright nights taking toll on forgotten invertebrates

From bats to moths, species working the night shift are suffering as light pollution soars
When we think about invertebrates, most of us picture bees, butterflies, worms, crabs or perhaps even a jellyfish. But did you know that at least two-thirds of invertebrates are active at night, meaning many are unlikely to be seen? Invertebrates carry out many of the same functions as their daytime counterparts, in some cases doing so with greater efficiency and variety.
For centuries, artificial light has been a symbol of progress. From the flickering flames of early fires to the dazzling LED displays of modern cities, light has shaped human civilisation. But while we celebrate its convenience, we often overlook the darker side of our obsession with illumination: light pollution.
The Guardian is running theinvertebrate of theyear competition 2025 – and this time it’s global.Nominate your favourite invertebrate, and then, in a few weeks time, we’ll vote on which is the best.
Continue reading...
Seals, sharks and spiny squat lobsters: Underwater Photographer of the Year 2025 – in pictures

The annual competition draws thousands of entries from across the world and brings together images from below the water’s surface that show the diversity and challenges of subaquatic life
- All photographs courtesy of Underwater Photographer of the Year 2025
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Two-thirds of the Earth’s surface experienced record heat in 2024. See where and by how much – visualised

In oceans and on land, from the north to the south pole, records were smashed for the monthly average temperature
Two-thirds of the world’s surface was scorched by a month or more of record-breaking heat, Guardian analysis of satellite data can reveal.
In oceans and on land, from Colombia to China, and from the north to south pole, records for the monthly average temperature were smashed time and time again last year – in some cases, by as much as 5C (9F) hotter than the previous record.
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‘To say there’s no future is counterproductive’: metal megastars Architects on grief, climate and hope for humanity

Consumed by anger and still mourning a brother and bandmate, the British quartet have written their masterpiece. They explain how they’re fighting self-loathing and trying to age responsibly
In a world of low royalties and short attention spans, not many bands make it to 11 albums, much less have their 11th be their masterpiece. But over the course of 20 years, the metalquartet Architects have inched towards this milestone. The Sky, the Earth & All Between sets out its scale in its title, where gigantic pop choruses soar over hellish chasms of churning noise, resulting in the most consistently sublime British rock album of this decade. The band are now at their arena-filling, Metallica-supporting peak, adored by millions.
“But it means nothing,” says frontman, Sam Carter. “Because you don’t believe it. If you can’t access that part of you that lets it in, then it’s pointless.” Drummer and lyricist, Dan Searle, is equally downcast. “I punish myself, I loathe myself,” he says evenly, blinking behind his glasses. “I feel like I’m shit at everything.” Across two decades, the band have been buffeted by poor mental health, creative differences and an instance of particularly traumatic grief. While the pair are quick to joke during our long conversation in a London photo studio, and are clearly ravenously ambitious, I have never met a rock band as candid about their frailties.
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The EPA weighed two LA beachfront sites for toxic waste sorting. These ‘hippies and hicks’ revolted

Residents in Topanga Canyon – an area of Indigenous heritage and artists – mobilized against the state’s decision to bring in hazardous materials after wildfires
Twenty years ago, it was called Rodeo Grounds – an eclectic neighborhood of artists, musicians and surfers living in beach shacks where Topanga Canyon meets the Pacific Ocean. In a bizarre agreement with the former owner some paid as little as $100 a month for rent, raising multiple generations of their families here since the 1950s. But that was before the state purchased the property and started evicting residents in 2001. Julie Howell, who once owned Howell-Green Fine Art Gallery further up in the canyon, says the bohemians were kicked out.
“I actually had a show in my gallery 20 years ago for the group of artists who lived there at Rodeo Grounds, who they kicked out of that spot because it was so environmentally sensitive,” says Howell.
Continue reading...
‘If not fire, we’ll be killed by hunger’: villagers continue to feel fallout from Bolivia’s worst wildfires

Residents battle food shortages and health issues after vast areas of forest and farmland burned last year
As she walks away from the house where she raised her family, Isabel Surubí pauses to point at the bed of a stream, now covered with dry leaves, that once supplied her entire community. “The water used to come from here,” she says.
In 2024, wildfires in Bolivia burned more than 10m hectares (about 39,000 sq miles) of forest, farmland and savannah – an area greater than the size of Portugal. After the fires, and the drought that preceded them, the spring feeding Surubí’s village of Los Ángeles in Bolivia’s tropical dry forest ran dry.
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Weatherwatch: how bitter cold of February 1917 quietened Britain’s birds

Thousands of birds starved during one of the coldest Februarys on record, a stark contrast with recent winters
February often brings the first signs of spring in the bird world, with mild, sunny days producing plenty of birdsong and the start of breeding activity, including nest building for many resident species.
What a contrast with more than a century ago when February 1917 was one of the coldest on record. On Valentine’s Day, as the snow and ice had finally begun to thaw, those birdwatchers not fighting in Flanders met to share their observations.
Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

'My nephew killed my brother - but I've forgiven him'

Brenton Marriott died in August 2022, less than a year before the Nottingham attacks.
'Life-changing' gene therapy for children born blind

Four toddlers born with a rare eye condition have seen "life-changing improvements", say UK doctors.
Norovirus hospital cases reach highest level ever

More than 1,100 patients a day ill in hospital with vomiting bug last week in England.
Mum fears daughter's rapid deterioration without drug

A vital drug which allows Beatrice, 5, to live relatively normally may become unavailable on the NHS.
New graves mark lost generation in drugs-ravaged Scottish town

In just a year and a half, at least eight victims of drug misuse have been buried in Oban's Pennyfuir cemetery.
'My eye was saved by a placenta after acid attack'

Newcastle doctors use donated tissue to help save Paul Laskey's eyesight.
Cancer patients not getting right treatment, say doctors

Experts highlight particular problems with prostate, kidney and colon cancer in England and Wales.
'I discovered my fat build-up condition after a Love Islander had it'

Emma found out she had a little-known condition and "wasn't obese" after watching a reality show.
Pledge of two million extra NHS appointments met, PM says

Sir Keir Starmer says the figure is a "shot in the arm", but "the job isn't done" to bring down waiting lists.
Are noise-cancelling headphones to blame for young people's hearing problems?

More young people are presenting to audiology teams in England with difficulty processing sound.

Eco Nature News feeds

Funding cuts leave a forest at risk

One of the world’s most important places for nature is a small strip of mountainous forest no more than about 40 miles wide. And for want of a relatively small amount of money, its long-term health is in doubt.
News spotlight: Climate change is coming for Pacific tuna

Conservation International science fuels effort to help island countries manage a deep shift in their waters.
Turf war? Fixing grasslands can ease human-wildlife clashes

In Kenya, competition for food leads to conflict between livestock and wildlife. A new study offers a simple approach to avoiding it.
Now reading: Harrison Ford Is Still Full of Surprises

An interview highlights a spate of new roles for the Hollywood actor — and one old one, characterized by his trademark steadfastness.
For this scientist, the ‘real work’ is in listening

‘I wasn’t discouraged — I was hooked’: The tough conversations that shaped the path of Conservation International’s lead scientist.
5 experts share how hope fuels their work

Yes, it’s easy to feel despondent. The planet is overheating and nature is declining at unprecedented rates. But environmental chaos is not inevitable. Conservation International experts share why they have hope for our Earth — and why you should, too.
Indonesia protects ‘walking sharks.’ Are other sharks next?

The Indonesian government has granted six species of threatened “walking sharks” the highest level of protection — a move experts hope will lead to the conservation of other sharks, whose numbers have plummeted due largely to the shark fin trade.
IPCC report: Climate change could soon outpace humanity’s ability to adapt

The catastrophic impacts of climate breakdown may soon outpace humanity’s ability to adapt to it, according to a new report.
In historic move, Costa Rica makes big splash for conservation

Costa Rica announced Friday that it will expand its protected ocean area from 2.7 percent to more than 30 percent of its territorial waters.
In new film, top scientists urge action to avoid Earth’s ‘tipping point’

Earth is teetering perilously close to a tipping point — but it’s not too late to bring us back from the edge, says Conservation International’s Chief Scientist Johan Rockström in a new Netflix film.

ECO HVAR: AIMS AND ACTIVITIES OF THE CHARITY

Environment

Health

Animals