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.
Her research popularised the idea of the wood wide web, but the scientific backlash was brutal. As the author of The Mother Tree returns to the forest in a new book, she discusses her battle to reimagine our relationship with nature
In 2018, the ecologist and writer Suzanne Simard was conducting research in the forested Caribou Mountains of western Canada when a thunderstorm rolled in. She was with her two teenage daughters and her close friend and colleague, Jean Roach. They saw flashes of lightning, heard a loud rumble and then they smelled smoke. They were forced to run the half kilometre back to Simard’s truck as the trees behind them caught alight and the air grew thick. As they ran, animals burst out of the forest: a deer, a rabbit, a grey wolf. They reached the truck with no time to spare, all four of them covered in soot and dirt. Overhead, helicopters began circling the orange-black air, dropping water on the flames below.
Wildfires have become an ever bigger problem in Canada. The 2018 wildfires were the biggest in British Columbia’s history, but this record was broken in 2021, and then again in 2023, when fires consumed an area three times the size of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia and the smoke travelled as far as New York City. The cause is not only global heating, which has brought hotter, dryer summers, but also the changing makeup of the forest. When logging companies clear forest, they replant it with fast-growing conifer species, but these trees are much more flammable than Canada’s diverse, native forest.
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Review from non-profit finds range of scenarios of firms simultaneously lobbying for and against Pfas regulations
Some top US lobbying firms are simultaneously working both sides of the Pfas “forever chemicals” issue, raising serious conflict of interest questions and concerns that their activity is slowing states’ efforts to rein in the public health threat.
The review of six states’ lobbying records conducted by the non-profit F-Minus found a range of scenarios in which firms lobbied both sides. Most common Pfas are linked to cancer. The lobbying firm Holland & Knight works for the American Chemistry Council, which represents the nation’s largest Pfas makers, and aggressively opposes most regulations. Simultaneously, Holland & Knight lobbies for the American Cancer Society.
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Exclusive: Lough Neagh, which supplies drinking water for 40% of NI, contains genes resistant to last-resort antibiotics
Genes capable of creating antibiotic-resistant superbugs have been detected in the UK’s largest lake, which supplies drinking water to about 40% of Northern Ireland.
Testing of water from Lough Neagh, which has a surface area 26 times bigger than Windermere, found genes resistant to a wide range of antibiotics, including carbapenems – drugs reserved for life-threatening infections when all other treatments have failed.
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Ruabon grouse moor, Wrexham: Mating season is upon us. Will I be lucky enough to spot a courtship lek?
I’m shooting grouse on the moor today. There are two kinds here: red grouse, a gamebird reared and shot in its thousands; and its larger, rarer cousin, the black grouse. The latter is supposedly spared by a ban that remains voluntary despite catastrophic declines in recent decades. As it’s not shooting season, which runs from August to mid-December, I shoulder a camera, not a shotgun, hoping to snap one of these increasingly rare birds.
Springtime is when black grouse start to breed, so I arrive before dawn, which is when they lek – a courtship dance where they fan their tails, peck and scuffle with their rivals.
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Carmaker’s decision to drop NissanConnect EV app on relatively recent cars fuels warnings from experts
Owners of some Nissan Leaf electric vehicles are angry after the carmaker announced it would shut down an app that lets them remotely control battery charging and other functions.
Drivers of Leaf cars made before May 2019 and the e-NV200 van (produced until 2022) have been told that the NissanConnect EV app linked to their vehicles will “cease operation” from 30 March. This means they will lose remote services, including turning on the heating, and some map features.
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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 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.
