Eco Hvar's aims for protecting animals and improving animal welfare, plus related articles
increase font size
Photo: Vivian Grisogono
But there are alternatives....
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.
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.
Regulator for England lacks powers to deal with what the public accounts committee calls an ‘out-of-control plague’
The Environment Agency is too weak to tackle an “out-of-control plague” of waste dumping, a powerful group of MPs has said.
The public accounts committee (PAC) said the EA had gaps in its powers and intelligence gathering which meant it was not set up to deal effectively with the rise in waste dumping.
Continue reading...
US, top carbon emitter in history, has ‘a lot of responsibility’ for causing ‘substantial’ harm globally, scientist says
The US has caused an eye-watering $10tn in global damages to the world over the past three decades through its vast planet-heating emissions, with a quarter of this economic pain inflicted upon itself, new research has found.
By being the largest carbon emitter in history, the US has caused greater harm to worldwide economic growth than any other country, ahead of China, now the world’s largest emitter that is responsible for $9tn in GDP damage since 1990, according to the findings of the paper.
Continue reading...
A long-running experiment in Colorado provides an ‘alarming’ view of how rapidly unchecked global heating could transform fragile ecosystems
Every summer, people descend on the wildflower capital of Colorado to see grasslands flush with corn lilies, aspen sunflowers and sub-alpine larkspur. In January 1991, scientists set up a unique experiment in these Rocky Mountain meadows. It was one of the first (and longest running) to work out how the changing climate would affect an ecosystem.
At the time, it was believed a temperature increase could lead to longer, lusher grasses. But instead of flourishing, the grasses and wildflowers started to disappear, replaced by sage brush. The experimental meadows morphed into a desert-like scrubland. Even the fungi in the soils were transformed by heat.
Continue reading...
Constituents’ frustration with Richard Tice reflects growing problem for party and its leaders’ climate-sceptic stance
“The worst part of it was the smell,” says Audrey Crook, 58. A full-time carer who lives with her 20-year-old son, Crook woke up at 11pm one night to find a foot of flood water on the ground floor of her home. “It was like black water. It had sewage and everything in it, it was absolutely disgusting.”
Crook’s home – along with more than 30 others on Wyberton West Road and Park Road in Boston, Lincolnshire – was flooded in January last year when heavy rain swept across the region, raising river levels and exceeding flood defences.
Continue reading...
GB Energy’s Jürgen Maier says production could bring economic benefits and give supply chains ‘time to transition’ to renewables
The head of the UK’s national green energy champion has joined other high-profile renewable energy leaders in making the case for more North Sea oil and gas production as the government braces for an energy cost crisis.
The GB Energy boss, Jürgen Maier, used a social media post on LinkedIn to reject the claim that more North Sea oil and gas could help to bring down energy costs, which have soared as the war in Iran has escalated.
Continue reading...
The report also recommends government do more to make tech companies liable for ‘psychosocial harms’
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
Australia’s climate change and energy “information ecosystem” is fuelling conflict in communities, with misinformation and disinformation confusing the public, slowing renewable energy projects and undermining policy responses to the climate crisis, a cross-party Senate inquiry has concluded.
The inquiry’s final report, released on Tuesday evening, recommended the government do more to make tech companies liable for “psychosocial harms” spread on their platforms.
Continue reading...
Hove, East Sussex: Loading it up with many different species – oak, elder, hazel, willow and birch – has turned it into a thriving ecosystem
In the garden, the log pile is a whole world. I hear frogs croaking from within it, I watch wrens foraging for insects. It’s a mixture of different species: apple from neighbours who were cutting a tree down, walnut from a pollarded giant at the allotment, hawthorn lost to a storm.
There’s also oak, elder, hazel, willow and birch. I stop tree surgeons and ask if I can take a log or two, replacing the sadness of another felled tree with the hope of the life its dead wood will support. I like taking new logs home for my log pile.
Continue reading...
Small farmers and community-led conservation groups are trying to protect one of the biggest semi-arid forests in the world – under threat from expanding agriculture, wildfires and the ‘logging mafia’
Jorge Luna stands in a piece of Argentina’s Gran Chaco forest that he calls his own. Birds sing as he surveys skyscraping molle trees, known as pepper trees, palo santo and algarrobo, or carob trees. “It’s good wood,” says Luna, 55. “I was about to cut them down.”
Selling timber promises quick and easy money in the sprawling ecosystem that covers parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil. But it comes at a steep price, contributing to rampant deforestation and irreversible damage to the forest.
Continue reading...
The fishery is regulated but experts say it is wrecking the food chain. Gordon Peake joined a Sea Shepherd mission to observe the giant ships compete for catch
It is bitterly cold on the deck of the Allankay and the bosun, Luca Massari, is checking that none of us are wearing contact lenses before we descend into Antarctic waters. There is a risk, he warns, that lenses will freeze solid over the eyes. Massari himself is prepared for his surroundings. He is wearing thick goggles that make him look like an Olympic ski jumper.
Massari is a burly, heavily tattooed veteran of the environmental organisation Sea Shepherd, which campaigns against exploiting the oceans. His deck team are preparing to launch the ship’s small boat, which Massari will helm. Eight of us are bundled in bright red dry suits, helmets and lifejackets; the average time to survive hypothermia in this wind-whipped water is just five minutes.
The Allankay sailed to Coronation Island from New Zealand to document the krill fishing. Photograph: Alice Bacou/Sea Shepherd
Continue reading...
Sixty years after the discovery of a colony of Juan Fernández fur seals, previously thought to be extinct, a landmark agreement extends ‘no take’ zone around the wildlife-rich archipelago
Six decades ago, pioneering oceanographer and conservationist Sylvia Earle made a bittersweet discovery while diving off Chile’s oceanic islands with the US National Science Foundation vessel, the Anton Bruun. She found the remains of a baby fur seal, one of the world’s most isolated aquatic mammals.
Endemic to the Juan Fernández archipelago, in the Pacific Ocean, and once prized for its fur and meat, the species, Arctocephalus philippii, was believed to have been hunted to extinction in the 19th century. But, Earle said: “A baby must have a mum and dad somewhere.”
Pioneering oceanographer and conservationist Sylvia Earle. Photograph: Andy Mann/Blue Marine Foundation
Continue reading...The walkout over jobs and pay is one of the longest yet in the dispute, and will begin on 7 April in England.
Experts say the wait was indefensible and possibly delayed identification of the outbreak.
The survey shows only one in four people are satisfied with the NHS but the figure is even lower in younger age groups.
As patients struggle to find NHS dentists, Labour has a plan but not everybody is convinced it will work
The UK has failed to keep pace with the rest of the world. Can it regain its status, and how?
Two pregnant women tell the BBC's Will Grant of their hopes and fears as their nation is mired in crisis.
"We could still see cases continuing to come in, we need to keep an eye on those, the UKHSA says.
Wes Streeting praises the "Herculean efforts" to protect people from the Kent meningitis outbreak.
Sofii Lewis was diagnosed with postpartum psychosis tendencies and OCD after giving birth.
UK scientists have grown fully functioning food pipes and successfully transplanted them into mini pigs, paving the way for human trials.
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.
