Eco Hvar's aims for protecting animals and improving animal welfare, plus related articles
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Photo: Vivian Grisogono
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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.
Climate campaigners question choice of James Evans for role given past criticism of green energy projects
The appointment of a Reform UK member of the Senedd Cymru as the chair of a key Welsh environmental committee could “undermine the hard graft of ministerial scrutiny”, a green thinktank has warned.
James Evans, a former Conservative party MS who defected to Reform UK in January last year, has been appointed chair of the Welsh climate change, environment, sustainability and rural affairs committee.
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Wakelyns needs £1.2m to save its diverse organic crops and ‘micro’ enterprises including a bakery and honeybee hives
The aerial view of Wakelyns matches the experience of visiting it at ground level: in a region dominated by prairie fields of industrial agriculture, here lies a vivid green lung of land. Its sounds and sights in summer – the sleepy purr of the turtle dove, the vivid pink flash of a bullfinch – have vanished from most of the British countryside.
But Wakelyns is not a nature reserve – it is a thriving farm, a “living laboratory” for agroforestry and a hub for innovation and business. It is also under threat, and its owners must raise £1.2m to turn it into a charitable community benefit society.
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Red warnings issued in Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Balkans, with authorities urging people to stay indoors
Parts of central, eastern and southern Europe sweltered on Monday as the “heat dome” behind last week’s record-breaking temperatures shifted east, bringing dangerous conditions to a new swathe of the continent.
Budapest is forecast to exceed 40C on Tuesday, according to models from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.
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Energy system operator says sum needed to deliver clean power targets while meeting rising demand is up by 50%
The cost of rewiring Great Britain’s electricity networks through the 2030s is now 50% higher than before the Labour government came to power, and could reach almost £90bn in the next decade, according to the energy system operator.
Building new high-voltage transmission lines and infrastructure to connect low-carbon energy to the grid in the 2030s was initially forecast by the energy system operator to cost £58bn.
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Government hopes for 30% of city’s fleet to be electric by 2030, in move hailed as ‘gamechanger’ on air pollution
The unruly chaos of Delhi’s roads would be unrecognisable without the rickshaws and scooters that zip through India’s capital in their millions, emitting toxic fumes in their wake. But now, ambitious policies aim to give the city’s most recognisable vehicles an environmental makeover.
On Monday, Delhi’s government announced plans to eventually ban petrol scooters, motorbikes and autorickshaws in favour of those running on electricity, in an attempt to bring down dangerously high pollution levels in the city by the end of the decade.
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Outer Hebrides: It’s nearly 100 years since anyone lived on this hostile archipelago, though their ‘village’ remains – as does an astonishing wealth of wildlife
Dawn on a deep-rolling ocean, and I am about to realise a dream. We’re 35 nautical miles west of the Outer Hebrides, on board the expedition cruise ship M/V Sea Spirit, approaching the archipelago of St Kilda – the most remote outpost of the British Isles, and the UK’s only dual Unesco world heritage site. Impregnable sheer cliffs spike the seascape, rising to 1,400 feet, and we’re in the company of Risso’s dolphins, flights of gannets and hurrying auks.
We make landing at Hirta, the largest of the four islands at about 2.7 square miles. Above the great storm beach lies a deserted, unnamed “village”, a thin crescent of traditional Hebridean cottages. Nowadays, the only inhabitants are St Kilda wrens (Troglodytes troglodytes hirtensis) – larger and darker than the mainland populations – but each cottage also bears a simple plaque listing the last family to live there.
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Exclusive: £75m publicity drive will ask people to treat water as precious resource and cut daily use by 28 litres
The biggest ever campaign to encourage the public to reduce their water use will launch this week, as the UK emerges from record temperatures attributed to the climate crisis.
The £75m publicity drive, called Let’s Save Water, will advise and encourage people to treat water as a precious resource and has a target for everyone to cut their daily use by 28 litres – or two large buckets – from the current average use of about 140 litres a day.
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The government’s requisition of a historic green space has ignited a fierce debate about air quality and heat stress in India’s scorching capital
For decades, the social highlight of winters in Delhi for the “beautiful people” was the polo season. A sprinkling of royalty and diplomats, impeccably groomed women in pearls and chiffon saris, along with wealthy industrialists sporting silk pocket squares used to gather to watch polo players compete under the mild, balmy sun.
They cheered on handsome players who, once the match was over, had children shrieking in delight as they put on a heart-stopping display of tent-pegging derring-do. Swish champagne lunches and other après-polo celebrations followed.
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In 1993, she squeezed a $333m settlement from a Californian energy company in a scandal over contaminated water. Three decades later, she has a new target in her sights – and it’s global
When Erin Brockovich woke to find 30 emails from people from the same town, she realised something was going on. People email Brockovich all the time because of what happened in 1993, when she was instrumental in suing Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) on behalf of residents of the town of Hinkley, California, whose groundwater had been contaminated. The case resulted in a settlement of $333m – then the largest ever payout for a direct-action lawsuit. When she was immortalised by Julia Roberts in the 2000 film Erin Brockovich, she became the hero we didn’t know we needed, a modern day Joan of Arc. She had won against PG&E with no formal legal training.
The emails she received a few weeks ago were about datacentres. In April, she put a callout on her website asking for anyone with concerns about one near them to get in touch. Within a month, 3,862 people had replied. Tech companies have needed datacentres to power their technology “for ever”, she says, but the new ones being built to power AI? “This feels like Hinkley on steroids.”
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Home-grown food may become a niche product for wealthy in our supermarkets as British farmers’ incomes plummet
For Liz Webster, who farms 647 hectares (1600 acres) in Wiltshire, south west England, the latest impact of Brexit has been particularly brutal. About £400 per animal has been wiped off the price she can get for her beef cattle, a hefty blow at a time when all the inputs – feed, energy, fertiliser – are going through the roof.
The fall in price, on livestock that typically fetch £2,000 to £3,000 per animal, is the result of a flood of cheaper meat arriving from Australia, the result of one of the new trade deals the government has signed since the UK left the European Union. Prices for beef in the supermarkets have remained broadly the same, but farmers have seen their income plummet.
Continue reading...An independent inquiry has found "unacceptable racism and discrimination" is affecting patient safety.
Doctors have been locked in a three-year dispute with the government, resulting in several rounds of strikes.
The Princess of Wales did the endurance event to raise awareness about "holistic healthcare" for cancer patients.
Demand is soaring beyond capacity, meaning children in England wait years for help with various conditions.
Cardiac arrests have gone up during very hot weather, and it's not just among the elderly and frail, experts are warning.
Experts say the cost of living, pandemic and boom in unhealthy food are behind the rise in cases.
Sitting for prolonged periods is associated with health complications – but you can counteract the risks of a sedentary life.
The immunotherpay can give children and adults three extra years before they need to use insulin.
Dr Hilary Cass says she is "absolutely convinced that more children will be harmed if we don't do the trial than if we do."
The presenter shared his "aggressive" cancer diagnosis on an episode of Clarkson's Farm earlier this week.
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.
