Decade for Ecosystem Restoration - Year III - €2.45

The annual postage stamp issue dedicated to the “Decade on Ecosystem Restoration” draws its inspiration from Pope Francis’ message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation on 1 September "Hope and act with creation": "Our power has increased frantically in just a few decades. We have made impressive and surprising technological advances, and we do not realise that at the same time we have become highly dangerous, capable of endangering the lives of many beings and our own survival. Uncontrolled power breeds monsters and backfires on ourselves'. The Vatican postage stamp aims to offer a powerful and striking representation of how even the most enchanting and pristine landscape could change and be disfigured over time if, instead of immediately embarking on a genuine and careful ecological conversion, we continue to persist in attitudes of neglect, indifference, arrogance, and greed. The stamp combines, blending them together, two visually striking and strongly contrasting images. From an ideal and unspoiled landscape, where the beauty and harmony of natural elements reign, akin to the Garden of Eden, we are projected into an almost dystopian and apocalyptic scenario scarred by smokestacks and factories polluting and defacing the environment, while advancing fire brings death and destruction.