'Natal Verde: 30 anos de postais de Jorge Paiva' awarded internationally

Project receives mention of honour and Coimbra University Press makes the work available in open access.

LC
Lorena Caliman
21 august, 2020≈ 3 min read

The postcards book by the biologist and researcher Jorge Paiva 'Natal Verde: 30 years of postcards by Jorge Paiva' received an honorable mention at the international 'Ciencia en Acción' prize, in Barcelona. The book project was organized by Exploratório - Centro Ciência Viva de Coimbra in partnership with the Order of Biologists and edited by the the Coimbra University Press (IUC). The distinction in the contest, announced in July, was unanimously awarded.

The book, published in December 2019, brings together the collection of Christmas postcards that Jorge Paiva has published and distributed around the world since 1990. Therefore, for 30 years, the researcher has left alerts and launched challenges with his postcards of ecological nature. As Luís Simões da Silva, Vice-Rector for Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the UC, writes in the preface to the work, the researcher's Christmas postcards "have contributed a lot to maintaining the ties of thousands of former students of the University of Coimbra with the place where they graduated ". In addition, the vice-rector sees the edition as a tool for educational work and a collective deepening of civic awareness, "about the importance of preserving and living in harmony on this planet that is ours: the Earth".

Paulo Renato Trincão introduces the work recalling Paiva's care with the creation of the postcards annually: "it is with imagination, care and hard work that, since 30 years ago, when the summer comes to an end, he begins to think about his next Christmas postcard ". The photographs, as indicated in the book, are taken from the author's own collection, alongside texts "deeply current and interventionist", where Jorge Paiva exposes concerns about the various environmental problems.

The postcards reach approximately three thousand people a year - sent carefully by Paiva, and whenever possible delivered by hand - and the idea, with the edition of the book, was to expand this spectrum, mainly in order that the postcards reach more teachers . In addition to the full text and photographs of the postcards sent by Paiva to locations around the world since 1990, the book features an interview with the author, at the end: "We will not be able to survive on earth without the forest".

In addition to being for sale at the Exploratório - Centro Ciência Viva de Coimbra, the book was recently made available by IUC in open access, in PDF:

https://doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-1912- 5.

The work was coordinated by Paulo Renato Trincão, Lídia Pereira and Ana Rita Paiva.