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.
With anger stoked by Channel 4’s drama Dirty Business, we look at what has happened to some of the main players
Water companies have been in the public eye for the wrong reasons again recently. South West Water was in the dock pleading guilty to supplying water unfit for human consumption, while the regulator fined South East Water £22.5m for repeated supply failures that affected more than 280,000 people over three years.
As the full scale of the sewage pollution scandal has been revealed to the public over the past six years, key figures working for the regulators and the privatised companies have been heavily criticised. Channel 4’s drama Dirty Business has focused attention on individuals at the heart of the scandal.
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This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world
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As energy prices tripled in the 1970s due to Middle Eastern wars, Scandinavia, France and the Netherlands sped up green transition
When Middle Eastern wars sparked an oil crisis in the 1970s, tripling energy prices and throwing economies into chaos, some countries looked beyond short-term solutions. The French made nuclear the pillar of their power system. Scandinavians insulated buildings and funnelled waste heat into homes. The Dutch built bike lanes where others wanted motorways. The Danes developed wind turbines.
Such steps cleaned filthy air and cut imports from autocrats but took a back seat when Russia invaded Ukraine half a century later. Europe raced to buy gas from the US and Middle East. Policies to roll out renewables by cutting red tape helped reduce dependence, but calls to use less energy and reduce waste were muted. Industry lobbying and populist backlash have since sabotaged efforts to phase out petrol cars and fossil boilers.
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A project in London is helping hundreds of people, providing a genuine alternative to traditional treatments
“What you’ve got there from the sun on your face is a massive boost of serotonin!” says Alison Greenwood, founder of Dose of Nature, the charity successfully prescribing time outside as a treatment for mental health.
Greenwood is striding round Pensford Field, a tiny patch of wildness tucked behind houses in south-west London. The bright day is illuminating the early blackthorn blossom, gleaming off the pond where a heron watches tiny froglets and shadows of birch trees on a wood-chip path. “All these trees and plants are giving off phytoncides, and they’re good for your immune system too,” the former NHS psychologist says.
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Exclusive: Campaigners call for government to introduce right-to-roam bill that allows people to walk around their local woodlands
Nearly three-quarters of England’s woods are off-limits to the public, buried government documents show.
The study by Forest Research, which is a government-funded quango, found that 73% of English woodland is publicly inaccessible.
This article was amended on 13 March 2026 to make clear that the inaccessible trees are recorded by the Woodland Trust, but not necessarily on their land.
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US also experiences severe convective storms, while record-breaking heat recorded in parts of South Africa
On Monday 9 March, severe thunderstorms affected parts of southern France, with several departments including Hérault, Var, and the Alpes-Maritimes put under yellow alert for heavy rain.
Some of the heaviest rainfall totals came from a cell that passed over the Var department. Examples of high rainfall totals taken from some private weather stations come from the towns of Carqueiranne and Saint-Mandrier-sur-Mer, where 104.4mm was recorded in seven and a half hours, and 92.7mm in three hours respectively. However, as these are private weather stations, they may contain measurement errors.
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While tailings dams are meant to last for ever, extreme weather events are making many unstable – with devastating consequences for nature and humans
As soon as the barrier broke, a flood of poison brought death to the river. Gushing through the fragile wall built to hold back mining waste in Zambia’s copper belt in February 2025, more than 50m cubic litres of acid and heavy metals poured into the Chambishi stream – a tributary of the Kafue River, the country’s longest waterway.
Thousands of lifeless fish rose to the surface as a plume of acid floated downriver, leaving dead crocodiles and other wildlife in its wake.
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As the QuitGPT movement gains momentum, should people concerned about the environmental impacts of AI consider opting out?
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
It’s only a few years on from the release of ChatGPT but the race to plug artificial intelligence into everything has sparked a surge in datacentres, with escalating environmental costs.
Globally, datacentre power demand is growing four times faster than all other sectors, according to the International Energy Agency, and is on track to exceed Japan’s electricity use by 2030.
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In this week’s newsletter: In the wake of the DHS secretary’s firing, staff from the Federal Emergency Management Agency share how her tenure has left the US less able to the respond to the climate crisis
Donald Trump made his first cabinet-level firing last week when he expelled Kristi Noem. In her one year leading the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Noem sparked widespread criticism for overseeing inhumane immigration policies and avoiding questions about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers’ shooting of protesters in Minneapolis. She even earned the nickname Ice Barbie.
“Good riddance,” Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey wrote on social media about her ousting.
Bombing of Iran’s oil infrastructure to have major environmental fallout, experts warn
‘A sobering preview’: extreme heat now affects one in three people globally, study finds
Reaching net zero by 2050 ‘cheaper for UK than one fossil fuel crisis’
Good riddance to Kristi Noem. Her replacement won’t be an improvement | Moira Donegan
How Trump’s EPA rollbacks give US states new tools in climate suits
‘The perfect storm’: Trump has left the US less prepared for natural disasters, experts say
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We do not generally get epic tornadoes, sandstorms or avalanches, but we may get splashed by a bus on the road
Puddles, small and temporary pools of water typically formed by rainfall, hold a special place in British culture. They are the embodiment of the national weather’s tendency to produce mild inconvenience rather than drama. We do not generally get epic tornadoes, sandstorms or avalanches, but we do get wet feet, or splashed by a bus driving through a puddle.
The story of Walter Raleigh spreading his velvet cloak over a puddle so Queen Elizabeth I could cross while keeping her fine shoes dry is probably apocryphal. But Raleigh’s gallant if pointless gesture is typical of the low-stakes difficulty presented by puddles.
Continue reading...The number of fit notes issued has been rising, with more than 11.2m approved in England last year.
Flights are restricted due to the conflict leaving people stuck running up bills for rooms and food.
In first study of its kind, Cambridge researchers found AI toys could misread some children's emotions.
Lauren Macpherson was travelling home from a festival in London when her life changed forever.
A woman whose blood is so rare that it is frozen for up to three decades feels "very special".
Use our interactive tracker to see if treatment waits are getting better at your local hospital.
The inquiry is being held over concerns of poor care at the County Durham and Darlington trust.
The non-hormonal daily pill could benefit 500,000 women for whom HRT is not suitable.
Mesothelioma is an incurable cancer linked to asbestos, but a trial hopes to prolong patient lives.
Bank cashier Aleisha Rochester died two weeks after undergoing a routine procedure to remove an abscess.
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.
Conservation International’s Neil Vora was selected for TIME’s Next 100 list — alongside other rising leaders reshaping culture, science and society.
Climate change is happening. And it’s placing the world’s reefs in peril. What can be done?
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 Amazon rainforest, known for lush green canopies and an abundance of freshwater, is drying out — and deforestation is largely to blame.
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.
In a grueling and delicate dance, a team led by Conservation International removes a massive undersea killer.
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.
