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Environment

Environment

 

ECO HVAR'S AIMS:

To initiate, organize, promote and encourage projects to preserve and improve the natural environment.

HOW?:

- through projects for education in organic methods of farming

- through projects for education in the use of biodegradable substances for household washing and cleaning

- through projects to reduce the use of poisons and chemicals

- through projects for education in waste and rubbish management

- through projects for education in recycling

- through  projects to clean up the environment

- through projects to establish valid international organic certification for products

- through co-operation with organizations having similar aims in Croatia and abroad

Caring for Hvar's Environment

Published in Environment

What inspired ECO HVAR for the environment

Caring for Hvar's Environment
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Bird Names

Published in Environment

Names in English and Croatian of birds commonly seen on Hvar, together with the scientific names. 

Pied wagtail, December 2015.
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Hvar's Wildflower Treasures

Published in Environment

The wildflowers on Hvar are a year-round joy. Even in the depths of winter, there is hardly a week without colours brightening up the countryside, contrasting with the island's rocks and the variegated dark green of the woodlands. 

Hvar's Wildflower Treasures
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Perilous Pesticides

Published in Environment

Good health depends on clean air, clean water and a clean environment. Hvar Island is perfectly placed to offer all those amenities.

Perilous Pesticides
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Glyphosate - GBH

Published in Environment

GBH is the acronym for Grievous Bodily Harm, a criminal offence in UK law. It also stands for glyphosate-based herbicides...

Glyphosate - GBH
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Orchids, Dalmatia's Secret Treasures

Published in Environment

Wild orchids are a special part of our environment. Are we looking after them?

Orchids, Dalmatia's Secret Treasures
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Diocletian's Palace, A New Look

Published in Environment

The Romans knew how to build, and they knew how to choose the best sites for their building. Diocletian's Palace in Split is a prime and well-preserved example. New discoveries in and around the Palace in recent years have brought about a major revision of the history of this magnificent Late Antique building project.

The Peristyle
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The Organic Alternative

Published in Environment

Organic farming: possible? YES! worthwhile? YES! Mihovil Stipišić from Vrboska is proving the point.

Organic cultivation, Vrboska April 2017
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Plants, crops, soil: Natural Protection

Published in Environment

When soil is contaminated, what ends up on your plate and in your cup or glass is less than healthy. Chemical pesticides and artificial fertilizers are causing untold damage. The 'conventional model' of agriculture is exhausting the earth and undermining human health. There are much better methods of protecting soil and plants using natural resources.

Field horsetail (Equisetum arvense)
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Rubbish Management 2018

Published in Environment

Rubbish management is a hot topic, not to say hot potato, around the world at the moment, especially in Croatia, where the European Directives which were laid down some years ago are finally due to come into force on November 1st 2018.

Binning litter, do it right!
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Starigrad Plain: Our Survey

Published in Environment

 

The results from our survey about land usage on the Starigrad Plain (Hora, Ager). The survey was conducted on behalf of LAG Škoji (Local Action Group), Eco Hvar and the Agency for the Management of the Starigrad Plain. The aim was to gain an overview of land usage, and to gather information as to what the landowners think is needed to improve conditions in this historic field layout.

Donkeys grazing on the Plain, 2nd June 2014.
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Eco Environment News feeds

  • About 15% of world’s cropland polluted with toxic metals, say researchers

    Scientists sound the alarm over substances such as arsenic and lead contaminating soils and entering food systems

    About one sixth of global cropland is contaminated by toxic heavy metals, researchers have estimated, with as many as 1.4 billion people living in high-risk areas worldwide.

    Approximately 14 to 17% of cropland globally – roughly 242m hectares – is contaminated by at least one toxic metal such as arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, nickel or lead, at levels that exceed agricultural and human health safety thresholds.

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  • From butterflies to wind turbines, project preserves world’s sonic heritage

    Online exhibition collects soundscapes from nature reserves and sites such as Machu Picchu and Taj Mahal

    The sounds of wind turbines, rare whales and the Amazonian dawn chorus are among the noises being preserved as part of an exhibition of soundscapes found in world heritage sites.

    The Sonic Heritage project is a collection of 270 sounds from 68 countries, including from famous Unesco-designated sites such as Machu Picchu and the Taj Mahal, as well as natural landscapes such as the monarch butterfly sanctuary in El Rosario, Mexico and the Colombian Amazon.

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  • Rural communities could be destroyed if UK signs US trade deal, says former food tsar

    Exclusive: Henry Dimbleby joins farmers in voicing fears of lower standards and a poor deal for British food producers

    Britain’s rural communities could be “destroyed”, the former government food tsar has said, if ministers sign a US trade deal that undercuts British farming standards.

    Ministers are working on a new trade deal with the US, after previous post-Brexit attempts stalled. Unpopular agreements signed at the time with Australia and New Zealand featured tariff-free access to beef and lamb and were accused of undercutting UK farmers, who are governed by higher welfare standards than their counterparts. Australia, in a trade deal signed by Liz Truss in late 2021 that came into effect in 2023, was given bespoke sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) standards aimed to not be more “trade-restrictive than necessary to protect human life and health”.

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  • Country diary: From the pavilion end, a pied wagtail

    Marylebone, London: These irrepressible birds can cheer up a motorway services or a railway platform. But their true home, for me, is on the pristine lawn of a cricket ground

    Time rolls on, defying our efforts to slow it down for the enjoyable bits. I tick off the markers of spring’s progress. Far out west, in Ealing, a singing skylark evades detection in the boundless sky, its silver chain of sound offering no clues as to its whereabouts. In “leafy Barnes”, sand martins duck and dive in and out of their nesting burrows. And at Lord’s, the cricket season begins.

    There is sun. There is a chill wind. There is a low hum of expectation. Lancashire are 143-2. Nearly everything is in place. All we need is a particular bird. As if summoned by the thought, it enters the scene. Flutter bounce flutter bounce land trot. Two rows in front of us, a member rejoices: “The wagtails are back!”

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  • BP suffers investor rebellion at first AGM since climate strategy U-turn

    Nearly a quarter of shareholders vote against the chair, Helge Lund, as green protesters are blocked from entering

    BP suffered an investor rebellion on Thursday after facing shareholders for the first time since abandoning its climate strategy at a meeting marred by protest.

    About a quarter of shareholders voted against the chair, Helge Lund, at the company’s annual meeting in Sunbury-on-Thames, on the edges of London, which attracted protest from several green campaign groups.

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  • Map reveals residential wood-burning hotspots in England and Wales

    Researchers analyse energy performance certificate data to identify areas with potentially high particle pollution

    Burning wood at home adds more particle pollution to the UK’s air than all of the vehicles on its roads, but there is very little information on where this burning takes place and who is most affected.

    To address this knowledge gap, researchers have produced the first high-resolution map of wood burning in England and Wales.

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  • Weather tracker: sandstorm turns Iraqi skies orange and empties the streets

    Thousands go to hospital with respiratory problems after massive dust cloud blows in from Saudi Arabia

    Iraq was hit by its most severe sandstorm of 2025 this week, turning skies from blue to an orange haze. Visibility dropped to less than half a mile, causing travel disruptions, with two major airports halting flights, and streets in Basra, the largest city in southern Iraq, left deserted. Respiratory problems sent thousands to hospital. The storm also affected Kuwait, where wind gusts exceeded 50mph, and visibility in some areas was diminished to zero.

    This massive dust cloud originated in Saudi Arabia before being blown into Iraq. While dust storms are common in Iraq, climate change is expected to intensify them across the region in the future, fuelled by desertification in Saudi Arabia and Syria.

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  • Kicking up a stink: row over sewage pollution blighting Cape Town’s beaches

    Campaigners say authorities should be doing more to clean up waters around city of nearly 5 million people

    On a clear summer’s day in Cape Town, the Milnerton Lagoon was serene, reflecting the bright blue sky and Table Mountain. But there was an unmistakable stench, and up close, the water was murky.

    A few hundred metres away, adults and children played in the water as it flowed into Table Bay. On the boardwalk, a sign read: “Polluted water: for health reasons, swimming and recreational activities are at your own risk.”

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  • ‘All of his guns will do nothing for him’: lefty preppers are taking a different approach to doomsday

    Liberals in the US make up about 15% of the prepping scene and their numbers are growing. Their fears differ from their better-known rightwing counterparts – as do their methods

    One afternoon in February, hoping to survive the apocalypse or at least avoid finding myself among its earliest victims, I logged on to an online course entitled Ruggedize Your Life: The Basics.

    Some of my classmates had activated their cameras. I scrolled through the little windows, noting the alarmed faces, downcast in cold laptop light. There were dozens of us on the call, including a geophysicist, an actor, a retired financial adviser and a civil engineer. We all looked worried, and rightly so. The issue formerly known as climate change was now a polycrisiscalled climate collapse. H1N1 was busily jumping from birds to cows to people. And with each passing day, as Donald Trump went about gleefully dismantling state capacity, the promise of a competent government response to the next hurricane, wildfire, flood, pandemic, drought, mudslide, heatwave, financial meltdown, hailstorm or other calamity receded further from view.

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  • ‘No fish, no money, no food’: Colombia’s stilt people fight to save their wetlands

    Illegally diverted rivers, seawater and poorly managed building projects have polluted the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta. But the Unesco site has a vital role to play in fighting climate change

    From the porch of her family home in Nueva Venecia, Magdalena, Yeidis Rodríguez Suárez watches the sunset. The view takes in the still waters of the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta wetlands. Pelicans dip their beaks into the lagoon, ripples breaking the glassy surface. Distant mangroves turn from green to deep purple in the dying light.

    The 428,000-hectare (1,600 sq mile) expanse of lagoons, mangroves and marshes in Colombia has been a Unesco biosphere reserve since 2000. Yet, for Rodríguez, 27, the natural abundance is little more than an illusion.

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