News & Events

Casa da História Judaica da Rainha da Fronteira wins a government award for actions and initiatives by local authorities to “save, protect and dignify human lives in Portugal in the face of contemporary threats and atrocities”.

A Elvas City Council won the first municipal award “Aristides de Sousa Mendes and other Portuguese saviors - Holocaust, universal values, humanism and justice”, in the category “Arts, Heritage and other Cultural Domains”, with the application of the House of Jewish History.

The honorary distinction, which is national in scope, was launched by the government in 2021. Among other things, it “aims to distinguish practices, programs, projects, symbols and material and immaterial works, which, inspired by memories and teachings arising from the Holocaust, and/or developed around universal values of humanism and justice, are factors of identification, aggregation and recognition by the respective communities, and valorization by differentiation, of localities and territories”.

In addition to the diploma that will be presented to the Municipality of Elvas by the Directorate-General for Local Authorities, The government undertakes to publicize the winning project.

Elvas City Council is a founding member of CoLAB InnovPlantProtect, which is based in the city.

Image: Elvas City Council

InnovPlantProtect and the Municipality of Sabugal install sensors in the municipality's chestnut groves and launch an educational program to value the chestnut tree as a local natural capital.

The trees will communicate their state of health thanks to TreeTalker sensors. The project “Educate to know, protect and monitor chestnut trees through IoT technology”, which has been approved by the Environmental Fund, is led by InnovPlantProtect (InPP) and managed by the Sabugal Municipal Council (CMS).

The initiative is aimed at the sustainable management of chestnut trees, the enhancement of ecosystem services and protection against diseases, particularly ink disease, for which there is still no concrete solution. The project includes training courses for those currently and potentially responsible for the sustainable management and protection of chestnut trees: CMS and chestnut producers associated with CastCoa - Associação de Produtores de Castanha do Coa; and secondary school students from the Sabugal School Group.

The novelty of the educational program, however, is that digital 4.0 technology, based on the “Internet of Things” (IoT), is being applied to support and add value to traditional teaching methods. The TreeTalker sensors, installed around the trunk, allow the phytosanitary conditions of the trees to be monitored in real time, detecting water consumption (through sap flow), biomass growth (diameter), stem humidity, absorbed solar radiation and the state of health of the leaves through spectral indices (light reflection).

Sabugal City Council has just publicize the project. Don't miss the newly released video, which highlights the importance of the chestnut tree to the livelihoods of local communities and the value of the souto ecosystem, and shows the team at work in the field. It's also a unique opportunity to see InPP researchers in action Manuel Simões, Márcio Almeida e Ilaria Marengo, director of Pest and Disease Monitoring and Diagnosis Department, and coordinator of this project.