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.
Exclusive: Whistleblower figures show large rise in ‘serious’ to ‘minor’ downgrades based on water company evidence
Environment Agency (EA) staff have downgraded thousands of serious pollution incidents by water companies in England without visiting to investigate, data unearthed by freedom of information (FoI) requests suggests.
The figures were obtained by Robert Forrester, a whistleblower who left the agency in January and has spent nine years shining a light on the state of the water industry. His identity was revealed in the Channel 4 docudrama Dirty Business this week, and he has vowed to carry on fighting to expose the truth.
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There is no end in sight to the pollution caused by a ‘broken’ system. Experts say it could even be getting worse
Sarah Lambert took her usual morning swim for 40 minutes off Exmouth town beach before her volunteer shift helping disabled people get access to the water.
A wheelchair user herself, Lambert’s regular sea swims twice a week between the lifeboat station and HeyDays restaurant were the perfect form of exercise for her disability.
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Hood hill, North Yorkshire: It’s a huge sycamore on top of a hill with amazing views of the Dales. Now we just have to get to it
A crisp clear day and welcome relief from a soggy winter – we’re off on my favourite walk, to Sammy’s Tree. There’s nothing to beat a hill climb on a winter’s day – frost and ice underfoot, the odd patch of snow on the hills above. We start on a track through mature conifers and ancient cherry trees, passing some hazel trees, their catkins already fully extended. A fallow deer, all legs and mottles, scurries away through the trees (much better than seeing a dead one on the roadside) and a flock of finches races through the treetops.
Then we burst out on to the open hillside which is covered in dormant heather and bilberry. A pair of grey squirrels chase each other round a stunted scrub oak, the green and grey lichen on the branches letting us know how clean the air is up here. At last, we’re on the ridge, with a sharp drop on either side and views stretching more than 30 miles over the Vale of York to the Yorkshire Dales. The sharp nose of Penhill, the gateway to Wensleydale, sparkles in the sunlight. We pass a crater showing where a bomber crashed in the second world war. Then, finally, we reach the top and the best bit of all – Sammy’s tree! It’s a huge sycamore that crowns the hill on the remains of a Norman motte-and-bailey fortress – and it just has to be climbed.
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Understanding biodiversity within species is key to our understanding of why nature works the way it does, say researchers
Words and photographs by Roberto García-Roa
Twelve miles from the heart of Rome, Dr Javier Ábalos pauses his walk, lifts his sunglasses and points. To his right, perched on a rocky wall, sits a beautiful lizard. Its body is coated in charcoal-black tones speckled with striking yellow across a green dorsum, and its head, with a prominent jaw, is splashed with fluorescent blue spots. The reptile basks in the sun, unconcerned by our presence.
About 80 miles (130km) drive farther along the road that connects the capital with the small village of Poggio di Roio, the researcher from the University of Valencia has barely stepped out of the car when he spots another lizard. This one is smaller, with a brownish body and a narrower head crisscrossed by a network of dark stripes.
Researchers fear the common wall lizard of the white morph could be driven to extinction by the arrival of a new variation
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Ice Memory Foundation’s specially dug ‘sanctuary’ offers storage for cores, which hold thousands of years of history
Last month the Ice Memory Foundation opened the first ever sanctuary for mountain ice cores in Antarctica, where samples will be stored for centuries to come.
The cores, typically 10cm in diameter and a metre or more long, are stored in a specially excavated ice cave. The first to be laid down came from two Alpine glaciers that are rapidly shrinking.
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The annual competition draws thousands of entries from across the world and brings together images from below the water’s surface that show the diversity and challenges of subaquatic life
All photographs courtesy of Underwater Photographer of the Year 2026
Local river defenders force U-turn by occupying grain terminal operated by one of US powerhouses of world trade
“A victory for life.” That was the triumphal message from Indigenous campaigners in the Brazilian Amazon this week after they staved off a threat to the Tapajós River by occupying a grain terminal operated by Cargill, the biggest privately owned company in the United States.
“The river won, the forest won, the memory of our ancestors won,” said the campaigners in Santarém when it was clear their actions had forced the Brazilian government into a U-turn on plans to privatise one of the world’s most beautiful waterways and expand its role as a soy canal.
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Litter picking groups struggle to stem tide of rubbish after reported incidents rose 10% in last year
Last Wednesday, in a layby outside Brackley, Northamptonshire, Trish Savill and her band of self-styled Wombles proudly took photos of their morning’s work: 28 bags stacked neatly against the verge.
It had taken them an hour, but they had barely made a dent in the sprawl of unrecognisable, rotting refuse already working its way into the soil, mixed with dumped white goods and some more dubious finds.
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Falling groundwater, extreme heat and water-intensive farming are accelerating land collapse, forcing a rethink in agricultural practices
Fatih Sik was drinking tea with friends at home when he heard a rumbling sound outside that grew to a loud boom, like a volcano had erupted nearby. From the window, he saw water and mud shoot into the sky, as high as the tallest trees, less than 100 metres away.
The 47-year-old knew what it was, because it is common in Karapınar, Konya, a vast agricultural province known as Turkey’s breadbasket. A giant sinkhole had opened up on his land. Fifty metres wide and 40 metres deep, it had appeared almost a year to the day after a previous one had formed. It was August – the hottest month of the year.
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With most Scots supportive of reintroducing the wild cat, charities are focusing on those whose jobs could be affected
Could lynx, the elusive wild cat driven to extinction in Britain more than 1,000 years ago, become the new Loch Ness monster? “Whether Nessie’s there or not, she draws tourists,” said Margaret Luckwell, a resident of Moray, Scotland. “It would be the same with lynx. I’d love to see a lynx in the wild.”
Luckwell’s view is a majority one among local people gathering at village halls across the Highlands, as a painstaking consultation slowly gathers momentum for the apex predator’s return to Scottish forests.
Continue reading...The new review brings together the strongest evidence to date on collagen supplementation, say experts.
Bills to let terminally ill people end their life are being considered at Westminster and in Scotland.
Birmingham Children's Trust refused respite help and suggested training grandparents to help.
The interim report has identified problems "at every stage" of the maternity journey in England.
There were 4,793 people sleeping on the streets on a single night last autumn.
Understanding the seasonal patterns of sperm could improve fertility treatments, by optimising the timing of treatment, the reasearchers say.
New contract will require patients in England to be given immediate appointment if needed.
Emma Dyer says she collapsed on her bathroom floor and began vomiting blood after buying jabs online.
Grace Bell, who was born without a viable womb, says her little boy is "simply a miracle".
Bid to improve access to Mounjaro in England, but experts warn eligibility still tightly restricted.
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.
