ECO HVAR: AIMS AND ACTIVITIES OF THE CHARITY

Environment

Eco Hvar's aims for environmental protection, and related articles.

Read more...

maria lidija

Health

Eco Hvar's ideas for encouraging positive health, plus related articles

Read more...

Animals

Eco Hvar's aims for protecting animals and improving animal welfare, plus related articles

Read more...

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

You are here: Home

Eco Environment News feeds

  • President declares energy emergency, reiterates Paris withdrawal plan and overturns emissions standards

    Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency on the first day of his new presidency, as part of a barrage of pro-fossil fuel actions and efforts to “unleash” already booming US energy production that included also rolling back restrictions in drilling in Alaska and undoing a pause on gas exports.

    The emergency declaration, which made good on a campaign-trail promise but could be open to legal challenge, would allow his administration to fast-track permits for new fossil fuel infrastructure.

    Trump sworn in as 47th president – follow live inauguration updates

    Factchecking Trump’s speech

    A who’s who of far-right leaders in Washington

    Migrant groups at US-Mexico border await mass deportations

    ‘Doge’ violates federal transparency rules, lawsuit claims

    Continue reading...

  • Critical CO2 stores held in permafrost are being released as the landscape changes with global heating, report shows

    A third of the Arctic’s tundra, forests and wetlands have become a source of carbon emissions, a new study has found, as global heating ends thousands of years of carbon storage in parts of the frozen north.

    For millennia, Arctic land ecosystems have acted as a deep-freeze for the planet’s carbon, holding vast amounts of potential emissions in the permafrost. But ecosystems in the region are increasingly becoming a contributor to global heating as they release more CO2 into the atmosphere with rising temperatures, a new study published in Nature Climate Change concluded.

    Continue reading...

  • More than 40% of individual corals monitored around One Tree Island reef bleached by heat stress and damaged by flesh-eating disease

    More than 40% of individual corals monitored around a Great Barrier Reef island were killed last year in the most widespread coral bleaching outbreak to hit the reef system, a study has found.

    Scientists tracked 462 colonies of corals at One Tree Island in the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef after heat stress began to turn the corals white in early 2024. Researchers said they encountered “catastrophic” scenes at the reef.

    Continue reading...

  • Artisanal shellfish farmers face ruinous losses but money meant to help is going to the powerful fishing industry, say critics

    Early on a warm September morning in southern Italy, Giovanni Nicandro sets out from the port of Taranto in his small boat. Summoning his courage, the mussel farmer inspects his year’s work – only to find them all dead, a sight that almost brings him to tears.

    “We have many problems,” he says. “The problems start as soon as we open our eyes in the morning.” The loss is total – not only for Nicandro but also for Taranto’s 400 other mussel farmers, after a combination of pollution and rising sea temperatures devastated their harvest.

    Continue reading...

  • Move is part of £300m investment that includes deepwater quay and building of hundreds of homes near city centre

    Belfast harbour is to invest £90m to upgrade its port to serve a wave of wind energy projects and cruise ships as part of a £300m investment plan.

    A new deepwater quay capable of supporting wind projects will be the largest part of an investment plan that also includes the construction of hundreds of homes at a site near the city centre.

    Continue reading...

  • Lightwood, Derbyshire: The spray had created such a stunning showcase of ice that it lured me down a steep bank – twice

    For 10 days Buxton was buried by snow and further bound, night after night, in sub-zero conditions. At Lightwood there’s a steep-sided dell enfolded beneath old beech trees and held in almost permanent shadow, so that as I threaded a precarious route to the bottom, I could feel a further instant fall in temperature.

    The goal was a water pipe. Its outflow cascades for barely a metre, but relentless spray has scoured as its catchment basin a gritstone arc 3 metres across. Those rocks are plastered by platyhypnidium moss, while the drier south side is adorned with frost-wilted remnants of broad buckler and hart’s-tongue ferns.

    Continue reading...

  • First Quantum Minerals’ copper operation was shut down more than a year ago, but Indigenous people report restrictions on movement and unexplained illness and death

    For the people of the nine Indigenous communities within the perimeter of the sprawling Cobre Panamácopper mine, travelling into and out of the concession is far from straightforward. An imposing metal gateway staffed by the mining company’s security guards blocks the road. People say the company severely restricts their movement in and out of the zone, letting them through only on certain days.

    The mining concession, located 120km (75 miles) west of Panama City, is owned by Canada-based First Quantum Minerals, which operates through its local subsidiary, Minera Panamá. The company’s private security guards, not the national police, patrol the concession. Local residents, mostly subsistence farmers of modest means, say that First Quantum operates as a state within a state.

    Continue reading...

  • Altadena’s Village Playgarden education center served diverse families with outdoor classrooms, small farm and animals – till it was destroyed by flames

    In Altadena, it had become the hot ticket among the preschool set.

    But when Geoff and Kikanza Ramsey-Ray first bought the two-acre property at the edge of town in 2008, it was a shambles. The home was a rental for over 30 years and the grounds were woefully neglected. Yet the couple saw promise. Nestled against Angeles Crest national forest, with a mountain view and on a road with few other homes, the place felt protected and perfect for their vision: an early education center called Village Playgarden.

    Continue reading...

  • Bubbles of air trapped in ancient Antarctic ice, dating up to 2m years old, contain unknown information about Earth’s past climate

    Traversing the world’s most unforgiving continent requires a generous measure of stoicism. “We took risks, we knew we took them,” wrote the Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott in 1912, trapped by a fierce blizzard in the days before he died, on an ill-fated expedition to reach the south pole. “Things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint.”

    More than a century later, elemental extremes are still an unfortunate fact of life for scientists in Antarctica. Despite three seasons of bad luck which have delayed his team’s quest to find the world’s oldest ice, the paleoclimate scientist Dr Joel Pedro remains sanguine. He has good reason to be: this summer, after multiple setbacks and a relocation, a plan years in the making is finally coming to fruition.

    Continue reading...

  • Volunteers who leave water in the desert describe rising fears of vigilantes and climate peril

    It was a blustery day in the Sonoran desert as a group of humanitarian aid volunteers hiked through a vast dusty canyon to leave gallons of bottled water and canned beans in locations where exhausted migrants could find them.

    Empty plastic bottles, rusty cans and footprints heading north were among the signs of human activity strewn between the towering saguaro and senita cacti, in an isolated section of the Organ Pipe Cactus national monument – about 20 miles (32km) north of the US-Mexico border.

    Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds