Enhancing and Conservation of Ecosystem through Philatelic Education in Europe: Think Green Concept (I) - Stamp Research Study

Abstract

Each year the members of PostEurop issue EUROPA stamps on a common theme. One new twist is that all stamp issuers in the PostEurop area are using the same motif. The 2016 year's theme was the environment. PostNord works actively to take environmental and sustainability responsibilities seriously and have set clear, measurable goals.
 EUROPA stamps are special stamps issued by European postal administrations and bears the official EUROPA logo, a PostEurop registered trademark under the aegis of PostEurop in which Europe is the central theme. EUROPA stamps underlines cooperation in the posts domain, taking into account promotion of thematic philately. They also build awareness of the common roots, culture and history of Europe and its common goals. As such, EUROPA stamp issues are among the most collected and most popular stamps in the world.
 Since the first issue in 1956, EUROPA stamps have been a tangible symbol of Europe’s desire for closer integration and cooperation. In 1993, PostEurop became responsible for issuing EUROPA stamps, so each year, philately working group selects the EUROPA stamp theme. “Think green!” was the 2016 theme. EUROPA stamps “Think green!” theme aimed to create awareness and give a wakeup call - its time to protect our environment for the better future of the coming generations, and to contribute to sustainable development. In this paper we propose an insight into the history of Europe preoccupations for nature protection and conservation, to bring into limelight the significant concerns in promoting ecological education via thematic issues (in this case, “Think green!” issues). In this context, for this study only, the main objective is to identify, index and describe the main philatelic pieces issued as EUROPA stamps, from the beginning of issuing in this field, and for the first half of the countries involved in the 2016 PostEurop's contest.

Enhancing and Conservation of Ecosystem through Philatelic Education in Europe: Think Green Concept (II) - Stamp Research Study

“…As mentioned in a previous article [5], whose continuation this one represents, in addition to the common design -imposed somewhat by the European postal administration, many postal administrations are issuing "Think green!" stamps with their own designs.…”

“…The working methodology that we relied on to carry out the present study, as a natural complement to the one achieved in [5], is a relatively accessible one in the context of the current generation, which constantly frequents the Internet for documentation. Moreover, in order to fully understand the whole approach of the documentation, we just have to mention that we have considered a long line of online platforms, especially e-commerce sites and catalogs of philatelic pieces.…”

“…Thus, starting from the philosophical approach to environmental protection [1], we have gradually managed to move towards environmental protection and engineering [2], culminating in what we want to be a series of works dedicated to protected natural areas [3,4]. The present work has taken shape, as a result of our most recent concerns, which is meant to be a continuation to the study started by [5].…”

“…. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONAs in[5], visits to online platforms, more or less dedicated to philately, identify, index and describe the rest of the philatelic pieces (stamps, first day covers -FDCs) for the other countries participating in the "Think green!" initiative.…”

Enhancing and Conservation of Ecosystem through Philatelic Education in Europe: Think Green Concept (III) - FDCs Research Study

“…Moreover, FDCs capture the integrity of the issuing act, promoting at a somewhat macro level (as opposed to stamps, which are generally small in size) the whole story behind the Think green! issue [3,4]. Also, the semi-illustrations with which FDCs come, most oftenin the same package, involve not only the designers creativity, but especially the postal administrations desire to underline the theme.…”