COVER N. 333 - MOROCCO

Postmark: Premier Jour d'émission Meknès CD 11.09.2023 / Meknés 21.09.2023

Posted on the 21st September; received on the 17th October 2023

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According to the official definition, "UNESCO Global Geoparks are single, unified geographical areas where sites and landscapes of international geological significance are managed with a holistic concept of protection, education and sustainable development.

 A UNESCO Global Geopark comprises a number of geological heritage sites of special scientific importance, rarity or beauty. These features are representative of a region’s geological history and the events and processes that formed it. It must also include important natural, historic, cultural tangible and intangible heritage sites".

In Morocco, an area of 5,730 km2 in the middle of the chain of the central  high Atlas, some 100 km from Marrakech and 330 Km from Casablanca, was so declared and designated as the M'Goun UNESCO Global Geopark, in 2015, recognising the importance of the existing geological structures, some of it imprinted with fossil footprints of sauropod and theropod dinosaurs and harbouring large deposits of bones.

Morocco also hosted the 10th international conference on UNESCO Global Geoparks,  in Marrakech, which was to run from the 7th till the 11th September. Unfortunately, as if a stern reminder that the geological features over which  Geoparks want to call on our attention are sometimes due to tremendous convulsions, on the night of the 8th September Morocco was impacted by a terrible earthquake, rated at 6,9 on the Richter scale, with its epicenter in the town of Ighil, 63 kilometers southwest of the city of Marrakesh.

This unfortunate fact led to the congress works having to be closed in a dignified and organised way in spite of the appalling circumstances, on the 9th, with participants in a gesture of solidarity volunteering to donate blood, a scarce and much needed commodity on such devastating occasions.

The hosting of the Conference was also an occasion for Poste Maroc to issue a stamp dedicated to the event, which was to be issued on the last day of the Conference, the 11th, if not for the already mentioned disruption brought about by the disaster.

The 9,80 MAD stamp, illustrated with an image of a waterfall  in the M'Goun geopark, features on the numbered FDC that Pierre so kindly sent me and which besides the First Day Postmark dated of the 11th also features a regular postmark dated of the 21st September.

Un grand Merci, Pierre!