Plant Resources of Tropical Africa, known by its acronym PROTA, is a retired NGO and interdisciplinary documentation programme active between 2000 and 2013. PROTA produced a large database and various publications about Africa's useful plants.
Purpose
PROTA was concerned with increasing accessibility to traditional knowledge and scientific information about many types of African plants including: dyes & tannins, fibers, medicinal plants, stimulants, tropical timbers, vegetables, tubers (carbohydrates), oil seeds, ornamental plants, forage plants, and cereals. PROTA supported the sustainable use of these useful plants to preserve culture, reduce poverty and hunger, and respond to climate change. To this end, PROTA's overall goal was synthesize diverse, published information for approximately 8,000 plants used in tropical Africa, then make it widely accessible through an online database and various book publications. In other words, PROTA was dedicated to making the useful plant biodiversity of tropical Africa better-known and respected.[1][2]
PROTA's database and various publications are considered unique in their epistemological approach because they were compiled as much from obscure publications as from peer-reviewed and popular literature, gathered throughout Africa and Europe.[3] In this way PROTA publications include Africa-centered references and perspectives, which is a major focus of the broader discipline of African studies. PROTA also was an international NGO registered in Nairobi, Kenya that used information from its publications to structure a number of community projects involving over 800 farmers in Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Kenya, and Madagascar.[1][4]
As of 2022, the PROTA database Prota4U is still online in an archive-like capacity at Wageningen University with articles written in English and French. Information in the PROTA database can also be accessed at the website Pl@ntUse–though in a different format. As of 2019, Prota4U had about 1,500 daily visitors and 500,000 unique visitors each year.[11] All of the PROTA's encyclopedia volumes have been digitized and are available for free as Open access publications from the Wageningen University library. It is uncertain how much of the PROTA Recommends Series has been digitized.
Partners
The programme operated through an international network of institutional partners and collaborators of the PROTA Foundation. PROTA had representatives in 20 African countries and dual headquarters in Wageningen, Netherlands and Nairobi, Kenya. PROTA also had regional offices with institutional partners in Burkina Faso, France, Gabon, Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Uganda, and the United Kingdom.[12] In Wageningen, PROTA also partnered with the EU funded, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and the now-retired Agromisa Foundation to help distribute its various publications. Agromisa and PROTA were considered suitable partners because they were both committed to bridging the gap between scientific knowledge and traditional knowledge and were open access publishers of books with practical information about sustainable agriculture for small-farmers in Africa.[13]
PROTA Institutional Partners
Affiliation
Institution
Country
Francophone Regional Office
Centre National de Semences Forestieres
Burkina Faso
France Country Office
Acropolis International
France
Central Africa Regional Office
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique
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PROTA Handbook Encyclopedia Series
Description
The PROTA Handbook Series is a large illustrated encyclopedia series of utility plant species found in Tropical Africa. PROTA's retirement in 2013 made it unfeasible to complete the encyclopedia series, therefore only 9 volumes were ever published. In 2002, the series was projected to contain 16 volumes with entires for 7,000-8000 species. It was estimated that the series would include 2,500 botanical line drawings, and 2,500 species distribution maps in about 11,000 pages.[14] The existing PROTA encyclopedia volumes been described metaphorically in the Kew Bulletin as a treasure trove of information.[15] The Food and Agriculture Organization and Biodiversity International described PROTA 2: Vegetables as a detailed collection of ethnobotanical knowledge.[16] Some PROTA encyclopedias have received more than 376 citations.[17] PROTA Encyclopedia editors included individuals such as G.J. Grubben, who had led projects commissioned by the United Nations International Board for Plant Genetic Resources; and Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, a biodiversity scientist who later became the President of Mauritius.[18] Though organized by species according to conventional botanical nomenclature, PROTA encyclopedias also include vernacular names in major African languages such as Swahili where information was available.[12] PROTA continued to distribute its encyclopedias after the organization's retirement. As of 2019, than 30,000 PROTA encyclopedias had been printed in English and French and were distributed widely with the help of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and the now-retired Agromisa Foundation. Several PROTA encyclopedias are also available at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Headquarters' Library in Switzerland.[19]
Content
Species articles in the PROTA encyclopedia series were written by hundreds of authors from around the world and in Africa, and cover a range of information including:[20][12][21]
Currently, all published PROTA encyclopedias volumes have been digitized and are available as Open access publications from the Wageningen University library.[22] Several encyclopedias in the series were planned but not started at the time of PROTA's retirement in 2013.
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Other PROTA Publications
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Other PROTA Publications
Title
Status
Year
Digitized
Editors
Language
Plant Resources of Tropical Africa: Precursor
Published
2002
Yes
Oyen, L.P.A. and Lemmens, R.H.M.J.
English, French
PROTA: Basic list of species and commodity groupings
2002
Yes
Bosch, C.H.
PROTA: Updated list of species and commodity groupings
2010
Yes
Chauvet, M.
Promising African Plants: A Selection from the PROTA Programme
2010
Yes
—
Proceedings of the First PROTA International Workshop
2002
No
—
PROTA: African Ornamentals: Proposals and Examples
2011
No
—
Reception
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PROTA2: Vegetables
According to Google Scholar PROTA 2: Vegetables has been widely cited, receiving more than 367 citations as of October, 2022.[17]
Nigerian ethnobotanists reported in 2004 that PROTA 2: Vegetables included contributions from over 100 authors and detailed cultivation practices for 280 indigenous vegetables.[21]
A 2004 book review in the Kew Bulletin regarded PROTA 2: Vegetables as being well cited, with over 1500 references.[23]
A 2004 book review in the Nordic Journal of Botany commented that PROTA 2: Vegetables "should be found on the bookshelves of every institution dealing with tropical botany, nutrition, health, and agriculture" [24]
A 2004 book review from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Biodiversity International said that PROTA 2: Vegetables brought needed addition to literature about vegetable resources in Africa, and that many of the vegetables described in the volume are unique to Africa. The book review also commented that PROTA2: Vegetables was particular useful for its detailed collection of ethnobotanical knowledge about both domesticated and wild-harvested vegetables in Africa.[16]
PROTA3: Dyes and Tannins
A 2006 book review of PROTA 3: Dyes and tannins published in Economic Botany noted that "the information contained in this volume highlights a number of lesser known species, and is a rich source of interesting information for anyone working at the interface of ethnobotany and domestication, and as such is a must have."[20]
About 64% of the 24 authors of PROTA 3: Dyes and tannins were from Africa.[8]
PROTA11: Medicinal Plants
A 2014 book review of PROTA 11(2): Medicinal Plants noted that about 30% of the contributions were written by African ethnobotanists.
PROTA4U Database
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The PROTA 4U Database was conceived to improve access to information in PROTA's printed publications. The PROTA web database PROTA4U is a combination of PROTA’s highly standardized expert-validated review articles (PROTAbase) and yet-to-be-validated ‘starter kits’ for all other useful plants. These ‘starter kits’ are pre-filled with basic information from PROTA’s databases SPECIESLIST (important synonyms, uses, basic sources of information) and AFRIREFS (‘grey’ literature).
Furthermore, the records contain the results of a meta-analysis from a large collection of agricultural and botanical databases, conducted successfully in cooperation with the ICON Group International.[25] The websites, which allowed their databases to be harvested, are properly acknowledged in the ‘starter kits’.
Debate
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^ abcSchmelzer, G.H.; Gurib-Fakim, A., eds. (2008). Plant Resources of Tropical Africa 11(1). Medicinal plants 1. Wageningen, Netherlands: PROTA Foundation / Bacchus Publishers. p. 791.
^Beentje, Henk (21 October 2022). "Book review of PROTA: Basic list of species and commodity grouping". Kew Bulletin. 58 (2): 510–511. doi:10.2307/4120640. JSTOR4120640.
^Siemonsma, J. & Omino, E., 2003. PROTA State of the art. Pp. 90-100. In: Schmelzer, G.H. & Omino, E.A. Proceedings of the First PROTA International Workshop, 23–25 September 2002, Nairobi, Kenya. Plant Resources of Tropical Africa, Wageningen, the Netherlands.
^Lock, Mike (21 October 2022). "Book Review: PROTA 2: Vegetables". Kew Bulletin. 59 (4): 650. doi:10.2307/4110929. JSTOR4110929.
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