Scientists have voted to eliminate the names of certain plants deemed racially offensive. The decision to remove a label containing such an insult was taken last week after a grueling six-day session attended by more than 100 researchers as part of the International Botanical Congress, which officially opens in Madrid on Sunday .
The effect of the vote will be that all plants, fungi and algae names that contain the word caffrawhich has its origin in insults against Black people, will be replaced by the word afra to indicate their African origin. More than 200 species will be affected, including the coastal coral tree, which will be known as Erythrina affra instead of Erythrina caffra.
The scientists attending the nomenclature session also agreed to create a special committee that will decide on names given to newly discovered plants, fungi and algae. They are usually named by those who first describe them in the scientific literature. However, the names can now be set aside by the committee if they are considered derogatory to a group or race.
A more common step to decide on other controversial historical labels has not been agreed upon by botanists. Nevertheless, the changes agreed last week are the first rule changes that taxonomists have officially agreed to for naming species, and were welcomed by botanist Sandy Knapp of the Natural History Museum in London, who chaired the six-day nomenclature session.
“This is an absolutely monumental first step in addressing an issue that has become a real problem in botany and also in other biological sciences,” she told the Observer. “This is a very important start.”
The change to remove the word caffra of species names were proposed by the plant taxonomist Prof Gideon Smith of Nelson Mandela University in South Africa, and his colleague Prof Estrela Figueiredo. They have campaigned for years for changes to be made to the international system for giving scientific names to plants and animals to allow for the removal and replacement of previous names deemed offensive.
“We are very pleased with the retroactive and permanent erasure of a racial appointment from botanical nomenclature,” Smith told the Observer. “It is very encouraging that more than 60% of our international colleagues supported this proposal.”
And Australian plant taxonomist Kevin Thiele – who originally insisted that historical past names are subject to change as well as future names – said Earth that last week’s moves were “at least a piece of recognition of the issue”.
Plant names are only part of the taxonomic controversy, however. Naming animals after racists, fascists and other controversial figures causes as many headaches as those causing plants, scientists say. Examples include a brown, eyeless beetle named after Adolf Hitler. Neither Anophthalmus hitleri alone. Many other species’ names recall offending individuals, such as the moth Hypopta mussolinii.
The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) has so far refused to consider changing its rules to allow the removal of racist or fascist references. Renaming will be disruptive, while replacement names may one day be seen as offensive “as attitudes change in the future”, it said in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society last year Nevertheless, many researchers have recognized that certain changes will have to be made to zoological nomenclature rules in the near future.
Knapp said: “The decision by botanists should make it clear to the scientific community involved in naming organisms that they need to open up conversations and become more aware and respectful of what names should be allowed.
“We took a baby step, no more than that. We need to make more changes to the rulebook. However, you never get anywhere until you start taking action, and we finally did.”