Eco Hvar

ECO HVAR: AIMS AND ACTIVITIES OF THE CHARITY

Environment

Eco Hvar's aims for environmental protection, and related articles.

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Health

Eco Hvar's ideas for encouraging positive health, plus related articles

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Animals

Eco Hvar's aims for protecting animals and improving animal welfare, plus related articles

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Welcome to the Eco-Hvar website

Welcome to the Eco-Hvar website!

Hvar Island on the Dalmatian coast in Croatia is one of the most beautiful places in the world. It has the makings of a paradise on earth. Islanders have long boasted of the clean air and sea, the pristine natural environment and the healthy lifestyle based on a good diet and outdoor living.

Clear sea in Hvar harbour, July 2014. Photo: Vivian Grisogono

Tourism is the island’s main economic activity. Hvar Town established the first professional tourist organization in Europe when the Hvar Health Society (Higijeničko društvo Hvar) was founded way back in 1868 under the leadership of Bishop Juraj Duboković. The Society’s aim was to attract guests to Hvar Town who could benefit from the climate, especially the mild winter, and the clean air. These ‘health tourists’ were well looked after by all accounts, with good food and healthy activities. They provided the foundation for Hvar’s enduring successful tourist industry.

The style of tourism has changed over the years. The basis of Hvar Island’s attractions remains the same. Many people still come to visit or stay here in order to enjoy the clean air, sea and countryside. No-one is disappointed in the natural beauty of the place. There are also other attractions, including the island's rich and colourful history and cultural heritage, not to mention the good food and high quality wines.

However, the island is not perfect. Certain aspects could and should be changed. There is a surprisingly high incidence of smoking- and diet-related illnesses on the island, such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and lung problems. The doctors also have to deal with thyroid and hormonal disturbances, especially in young girls, and cancers in all age groups. The indications are that islanders need a better understanding of healthy lifestyle habits, also a clearer knowledge of the downside of using chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

For animal-lovers, the treatment of animals also gives cause for concern. There is no animal rescue facility on the island,  and refuges for dogs and cats are urgently needed so proper care can be provided for homeless animals.

The registered not-for-profit charity Eco Hvar was founded in 2013 to help improve conditions for people, animals and the environment. You can read details of the charity's aims in each category on these links: Environment, Health, Animals. The overall ideal aim is to create a true earthly paradise on the exquisite Island of Hvar.

 

Eco Hvar is pleased to co-operate with like-minded organizations, and is a member of PAN Europe, and LAG Škoji, and a supporter of Zemljane staze - Earth Trek (Facebook page), Održivi otok ('Sustainable Island') (Facebook page), Dignitea (Facebook page) and Pokret otoka ('Island Movement')..

For comprehensive research and strategies for environmental protection, we follow and strongly recommend The Nature-based Solutions Initiative, which operates from the UK University of Oxford Departments of Biology and Geography.

The Eco-Hvar website contains original articles, information, references and links in keeping with the aims of Eco Hvar. All the material on the website is copyright, including the illustrations and photographs, and may not be reproduced or published in any form except with the copyright holders' written permission. However, you are welcome to copy or print out any of the articles for personal use only. For day-by-day topics of interest in keeping with Eco Hvar's aims, you can follow us on Facebook.

 

 

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Eco Environment News feeds

  • Rosebank oilfield would not breach UK emission targets, say government insiders

    Emissions from exported oil would not count against carbon budget, insiders say – reasoning likely to draw dismay from climate campaigners

    The giant Rosebank oilfield can be approved without breaching the UK’s emission targets, according to government insiders, in a boost to those in the cabinet who are pushing for it to be given the go-ahead.

    The Guardian revealed last week that Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy secretary, was leaning towards rejecting the project, but her position has put her at loggerheads with cabinet colleagues, including the chancellor, John Healey, who are lobbying for an approval.

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  • How rising seas transformed dry land into Venice lagoon

    Scientists uncover ancient hills and swamps that disappeared as sea levels rose across northern Adriatic

    Venice is famed for being a floating city, but research shows the land it sits on once lay many miles inland. Dramatic changes in sea level over 10,000 years have reshaped the northern Adriatic coastline, with much of the land that our ancestors roamed now lying beneath the waves.

    Samuele Ongaro, at the University of Southampton, and colleagues combined seismic data with sedimentary cores from the coastal basins of northern Italy, Slovenia and northern Croatia to model changes in sea level across the region and reconstruct past landscapes over the past 10,000 years.

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  • The climate crisis will destroy our economies – we learned this 20 years ago. When will we act? | Fiona Harvey

    The radical Stern report showed that a low-carbon future is also good economics. But it seems that capitalism needs a reminder

    Saving the only planet we have makes good economic sense. There is, after all, no money to be made on a dead Earth. There may be costs involved now, but they are worth paying to protect our children from certain destruction.

    These propositions seem self-evident now. But two decades ago, mainstream economists had very different ideas. They had proved that the climate crisis would be a mere economic blip, easily absorbed by growing economies and therefore not worth spending money on. In their accounting, they considered ice caps and glaciers functionally worthless, that trees only add to GDP when they are cut down, and that a livable climate shouldn’t even merit a line on a spreadsheet.

    Fiona Harvey is an environment editor at the Guardian

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  • Slovenia mourns loss of glacier on its highest peak after scorching summer

    Extreme heat accelerated disappearance of Triglav glacier from mountain revered as a symbol of Slovenian identity

    The final ice patch has vanished from Slovenia’s Triglav glacier, the latest Alpine casualty of Europe’s scorching summer.

    The once mighty ice mass lost 93% of its surface area between 1983 and 2003, shrinking to cover less than a hectare of overheated rock, but went on to surprise researchers who feared its imminent demise, clinging on to the mountain for two more decades.

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  • Sea of crimson: vivid ‘red beach’ transforms China’s wetlands and marshes – in pictures

    A striking transformation takes place along the coast of Qinqdao in autumn, when a native seepweed turns a brilliant shade of red.

    The ‘red beach’ phenemon can be seen in the salt marshes and wetlands on the coast of China’s Shandong province, where the Suaeda glauca plantmatures and absorbs water, changing it from green to crimson between September and November

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  • Country diary: A vial of water from the rivers, becks and springs of Yorkshire – but not without permission | Amy-Jane Beer

    Wharram and York, North Yorkshire: It’s the nervy few days before a ceremony that will honour our local waterways, and I have work to do

    I visit the source of the tiny stream called the Gypsey Race now and then, drawn by the everyday miracle of its water welling to catch sunlight like a plaything and alchemise it into colours and sparks. Today, though, is different, because I’ve come to ask for something. Something like permission, or approval maybe.

    I’ve been helping to organise a gathering of river advocates to co-draft a regional charter of river rights – making explicit our responsibilities towards them. We will be holding a ceremony to blend waters from across Yorkshire to make ink in which the charter will be written. I want to collect water from the Gypsey, but I also want some of its potent reputation. Its course is regarded as auspicious thanks to an extraordinary concentration of nearby prehistoric barrows, cursuses and henges, not to mention England’s tallest standing stone. Local folklore insists that its capricious flow holds the power of prophecy.

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  • UK spending on ‘fairytale’ carbon capture tech is a national embarrassment, chancellor told

    Chris Packham says £24bn earmarked for projects with ‘ludicrously uncertain results’ should be redirected to help lower bills and cut emissions

    Campaigners are calling on the chancellor to cut the government’s £24bn spending plans for “fairytale” carbon capture technologies in favour of funding green schemes that can reliably cut emissions and lower energy bills.

    The environmentalist Chris Packham is leading an 11th-hour appeal for the Treasury to use this week’s budget to scale back the government’s “exorbitantly expensive” support for carbon capture, which is now more than the planned spending for the US, the EU, Norway and Japan combined.

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  • When the weather is frightful, you don’t need to be: everything we love to stay cozy during cold months

    Here are some of our writers’ best ways to stay toasty and occupied, even during cold weather, from teas to pajamas

    When the weather starts to take a turn for the brisk, the impulse to stay inside and hibernate is nothing new – but there are ways to optimize your time spent inside for maximum coziness and pleasure.

    From a limited-edition candle to a plush, furry comforter that does double duty, here are some of the ways our writers stay toasty even when the weather outside turns frightful.

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  • Snail ate your mail? Why gastropods munch paper – and how to stop them

    In wet weather, garden snails can seek shelter in letterboxes – and find a feast there waiting for them

    We’ve all heard of snail mail – a term popularised since the advent of electronic mail – but who knew that snails eat mail?

    We have it on good authority from the ecologist Simon Mustoe – who said snails ate his letter from Sir David Attenborough – a BBC report announcing the closure of a Northumberland Royal Mail postbox because of snails “munching the mail”, and desperate people on the forums of the Australian hardware chain Bunnings claiming snails have “a real appetite for postal letters” and can “eat a whole letter in two days”.

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  • I struggled to come to terms with my mum’s death. Then I swam in the sea and suddenly felt connected to her

    My mother was a keen swimmer, and she lived with depression. I wonder if she found the same respite in the water that has helped heal me since she passed away

    It was early morning in late September, off the coast of Kaş in Turkey. Watching the slightly choppy sea from a boat, the last thing I felt like doing was embarking on another 5km (3-mile) swim. Mind fog had sapped my energy, and my mood was decidedly Eeyore-like. But as I pulled on my cap and flippers, adjusted my goggles and took the plunge, something shifted.

    Head in the water, the knotted feeling in my throat began to loosen. Breathing came properly. There was respite.

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