Eco Hvar's aims for protecting animals and improving animal welfare, plus related articles
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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.
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.
Refugee Council says ‘many refugees themselves could also be prosecuted’ under proposals
Richard Madeley goes next.
Q: The Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary says you are wrong, and the third runway won’t be built until you are 70. You are 45 now. Why is he wrong?
We’re signing off decisions on wind farms, on solar farms, a commitment to a new stadium at Old Trafford. We are upgrading the Transpennine route to make journey times easier between York and Manchester via Leeds and Huddersfield. Those things are happening right now.
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Critics say chancellor’s ‘growth at all costs’ plans are not compatible with UK’s climate targets
Rachel Reeves has been accused by environmental experts of putting the climate at risk with high carbon projects including the expansion of Heathrow airport.
The chancellor made airports the central focus of her plan for growth, despite having previously promised to be the first green chancellor and having extolled the benefits of green growth.
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While the US president seems hellbent on securing Greenland, local experts advise that achieving control of its potentially lucrative shipping route will be no mean feat
If shipping boss Niels Clemensen were to offer any advice to Donald Trump or anyone else trying to get a foothold in Greenland, it would be this: “Come up here and see what you are actually dealing with.”
Sitting on the top floor of his beamed office in Nuuk harbour, where snow is being flung around by strong winds in the mid-morning darkness outside and shards of ice pass by in the fast-flowing water, the chief executive of Greenland’s only shipping company, Royal Arctic Line, says: “What you normally see as easy [setting up operations] in the US or Europe is not the same up here.” As well as the cold, ice and extremely rough seas, the world’s biggest island does not have a big road network or trains, meaning everything has to be transported either by sea or air. “I’m not saying that it’s not possible. But it’s going to cost a lot of money.”
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Court says UK government green light for Rosebank and Jackdaw permits does not take into account CO2 emissions
The decision to greenlight a giant new oilfield off Shetland has been ruled unlawful by the courts, in a major win for climate action that scientists say is urgently needed.
The proposed Rosebank development – the UK’s biggest untapped oilfield – had been given the go-ahead in 2023 under the previous government.
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Populations have been falling for decades, even in tracts of forest undamaged by humans. Experts have spent two decades trying to understand what is going on
Something was happening to the birds at Tiputini. The biodiversity research centre, buried deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, has always been special. It is astonishingly remote: a tiny scattering of research cabins in 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) of virgin forest. For scientists, it comes about as close as you can to observing rainforest wildlife in a world untouched by human industry.
Almost every year since his arrival in 2000, ecologist John G Blake had been there to count the birds. Rising before the sun, he would record the density and variety of the dawn chorus. Slowly walking the perimeter of the plots, he noted every species he saw. And for one day every year, he and other researchers would cast huge “mist” nets that caught flying birds in their weave, where they would be counted, untangled and freed.
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Garrigill, Cumbria: The further we walk along the South Tyne river, the grander the gorges – till we reach a sweeping amphitheatre
The felltop road from Nenthead to Garrigill is still icy and we have to go carefully. Patches of snow linger behind dry stone walls despite the sunlight that delineates the workings and ruins of these heavily mined moors. Garrigill village, once a hub of industry where 1,000 people lived, is now a quiet collection of houses around a triangular green. The Spine Race ultramarathon recently passed through here on the Pennine Way and I think of those runners, way-finding by head torch, keeping on going through the night, challenged by weather, heading for the Scottish borders.
It’s the geology that drew people to settle here and to mine the hills for lead and silver, and it’s the geology that has fashioned the landscape of our walk. Looking over Garrigill Bridge, it’s extraordinary to think that this stripling river, rushing through its narrow gorge, is the South Tyne. Water tumbles over horizontal layers of limestone, sandstone and shale, sedimentary rocks laid down 330m years ago as mud silt and sand, thrust through by mineral veins of galena and fluorspar.
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Officials are making clean-energy moves in California, New York and beyond, and Republican states will be integral too
As the Trump administration rolls back decades-old environmental protections and pulls Biden-era incentives for renewable energy, state-level advocates and officials are preparing to fill the void in climate action.
Some state leaders are preparing to legally challenge the president’s environmental rollbacks, while others are testifying against them in Congress. Meanwhile, advocates are pushing for states to meet their ambitious climate goals using methods and technologies that don’t require federal support.
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Mete Coban, 32, says climate policy will bring ‘social, economic and racial justice’ to deprived communities
Working-class people and those from ethnic minorities will benefit most from a range of environmental policies being implemented in London, the capital’s deputy mayor has said.
Mete Coban, 32, grew up in a council flat in the borough of Hackney and saw for himself the difficulties the lack of green space, poor or overcrowded housing and polluted air can cause.
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Across the continent, millions of hectares of land are being used and run by local people coexisting with wildlife in spaces where both can thrive
Africa’s first national park was created 100 years ago by the Belgian colonial state in the Congo, and since then hundreds more have been developed – but in many areas there is more wildlife in protected areas run by local people.
Tens of millions of hectares across the continent are home to community-run “conservancies”, managed by herders, farmers and hunter-gatherers, who coexist with herds of large animals such as elephants, giraffes and buffalo.
The Nashulai conservancy in southern Kenya. The country now has more than 230 community-run reserves covering 16% of the country. Conservancies have helped wildlife recover while benefiting local people
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This week the EU will argue the UK’s ban on catching the tiny fish, celebrated by conservationists, amounts to discrimination against Danish fishers
“We did it!” These were the words uttered by the RSPB last year when, after 25 years of campaigning, the UK government banned fishing for sandeels in the North Sea and Scotland. The small eel-like fish might not seem a likely species to inspire a decades-long fight – but they are the treasured food of one of Britain’s rarest and most threatened seabirds, the puffin, as well as many other UK seabirds and marine species.
The celebrations, however, were short-lived. The EU threw its weight behind Denmark – the country with by far the biggest sandeel fishing fleet – and challenged the ban, meaning that this week, the humble sandeel will become the focus of the first courtroom trade battle between the UK and the EU since Brexit.
Continue reading...Scientists hope it could become a blood test to help spot those most at risk.
The technology could give patients with advanced heart failure new hope, based on early trial results.
The National Institute for Healthcare and Care Excellence backs a tablet for dust mite allergies.
CCTV footage revealed the abuse of patients at the Coventry hospital, a watchdog says.
England's chief medical officer warns of "bureaucratic thicket" if safeguards made too complicated.
Some lecturers at Cardiff University have begun getting letters advising them their post is at risk.
The health watchdog says gambling should be given the same weight as alcohol and nicotine addiction.
Some online sites prescribe a potentially risky hair loss drug without consistent safety checks, BBC finds.
The alarming rise in disorders such as anorexia and bulimia is now an emergency, a cross-party group says.
George Rabbett-Smith's mum criticises online sellers for inflating the discontinued product's price.
A new study is ringing alarm bells for freshwater species, finding nearly a quarter are at risk of extinction.
Alarm bells screamed for nature in 2024. But amid the gloom, quiet victories emerged, as ordinary people made extraordinary progress for nature.
It was a year of rough seas for the world’s oceans. But that didn’t stop conservationists and communities from working to protect the seas. Here are highlights from the year.
Conservation International researchers in Peru have uncovered a wealth of wildlife, including species new to science.
As 2024 comes to a close, global temperatures are at an all-time high — topping the previous hottest-year on record: 2023. Yet amid this backdrop, research consistently shows nature is a powerful climate ally.
“Invest in one woman, and that ripples out to her family, her community and beyond. It changes people’s lives.”
In southern Africa, grasses can beat the heat better than trees, according to Conservation International research.
An unheralded breakthrough at the recent UN biodiversity conference highlights the often-overlooked connection between our health and the planet’s, a Conservation International expert says.
A recent study on climate solutions downplays nature’s potential, two Conservation International experts say.
A new study found that seaweed forests may play a bigger role in fighting climate change than previously thought — absorbing as much climate-warming carbon as the Amazon rainforest. But not all seaweed forests are created equal.
