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Afrikaanse Inligting
Editorial: Status of the Protea Atlas
Good
News!
The South African Nature Foundation and the Department of Environment Affairs
have provided the funds to get the Protea Atlas underway. A special word of
thanks to Brian Huntley, director of the National Botanical Institute at
Kirstenbosch, for taking the project under his wings.
Consequently, we are again advertising for the post of Protea Atlas coordinator. Should you know of anyone who might be interested, please bring the matter to their attention. We are really looking for a PR person, who is willing to travel around the country demonstrating to, and establishing personal rapport with, prospective atlassers, farmers and conservation officers. An interest and love of botany and conservation are essential, but a knowledge of computers, botany, proteas, or atlassing is not essential: in-house training will be provided. The Atlas coordinator will be stationed in the Botany Department at the University of Cape Town.
We intend to have atlassers combing the four ends of the subcontinent by this time next year. Thus the atlassing manual, sight record sheets and field notebooks are entering their final stages of testing. Should you wish an introduction to atlassing during this winter and spring, please contact us with a proposed itinerary and several alternative dates. Only groups of between six and fifteen persons, all Protea atlassers, will be considered.
By popular consensus we have changed "Proteaceae" to "Protea" so that the project shall now be known as the "Protea Atlas". We shall be confining ourselves to proteas in the vernacular, that is, all members of the Protea family. This adulterated usage has been sanctioned by the International Protea Association. Thus the international cut flower trade is using Protea for such diverse things as Conospermums, Dryandras, Isopogons, Grevilleas, Banksias and Macadamias, to name but a few. There does not appear to be much a purist can do about this state of affairs, except, perhaps, to use "Sugarbush" instead of "Protea" and to include Needlebushes when Protea atlassing. Of course, the generic name Protea will always apply only to our "own" proteas.
For the more technically minded, information for the Protea Atlas will be captured on a personal computer, probably using dBASE˙4, and analysis will be undertaken probably using ARCINFO (a Geographic Information System) at the University of Cape Town. Should you know of anyone with a computing bent who might wish to participate in the computing aspect of the project, please enlist them.
Many thanks to those prospective atlassers who contributed R10.00 to the production of newsletters 9-12. Although this newsletter is being sent to all prospective atlassers, those who contributed will have the monies deducted from the "atlassing fee". This token fee, payable once the atlas is underway, will be charged to cover the costs of the atlassing kit. The fee is primarily aimed at those who wish to obtain the manual (because its a worthwhile document in its own right, with lots of pretty pictures) without participating in the project. Once the atlas is underway, backcopies of newsletters will be sent to all who pay the atlassing fee, but current numbers will only be sent to active atlassers or persons covering the costs of the newsletters.
We especially thank Jan Vlok for his donation towards the printing of this newsletter.
Tony Rebelo & Eugene Moll
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