PROTA Fibres 2012
News
PROTA volume 16 on “Fibres” has just been published. It describes 248 wild or cultivated species from tropical Africa which are mainly used for their fibres. 267 other minor species are mentioned in the articles. Some species are traded internationally, but most of them are only used locally, for making tying material and clothes, for thatching, packing and filling, or for the production of baskets, mats, wickerwork, brooms and toothbrushes.
According to organisation of work in PROTA, a species is considered in the volume dealing with its main use. For example, coconut Cocos nucifera gives valuable fibres, but is primarily an oil crop, and is described in the volume “Vegetable oils”. Such distinctions disappear on the website.
The second volume of "Timber trees" will be published in 2012. Unfortunately, due to lack of funding, PROTA will have to stop at the end of 2012. This may be a paradoxical result of food crisis. Donors have been convinced that intensification of the most grown food plants should be privileged. It should be known that if poor people suffer from hunger, the reason is not that not enough food is produced, but that they are too poor to buy it. Helping them to enhance diversified local plant resources would probably contribute more to improve their living conditions in sustainable agriculture systems. To do that, the challenge and the imperative is to build and make available a knowledge base on all the potential resources.
The “Fibres” volume is available in English and French, in the form of books and CD-ROM. All data is equally available on the PROTA website.
Books and CD-ROM can be ordered at Earthprint and CTA.