South Africans, Let's Get the Protea on Our Keyboards!

Photo Credit: The Wild Rescue

Move over 🌹. A South African nature reserve is campaigning to give the Protea a spot amongst the world’s emojis!

South Africa (15 July 2026) – We have emojis for unicorns, cherry blossoms, cacti and even a troll. But there’s something missing. Yes, the pangolin. But also, the Protea – South Africa’s beautiful national flower!

A local conservation organisation is currently campaigning to get it onto our keyboards.

The Wild Rescue Nature Reserve has officially submitted a proposal to the Unicode Consortium – the organisation responsible for deciding which emojis become part of the global keyboard – in the hope of creating the world’s first Protea emoji.

It is a fun idea, but there’s a much bigger reason behind it too.

The Protea is a symbol of South Africa and one of the best-known plants in the Cape Floral Kingdom, the smallest yet one of the richest floral kingdoms on Earth. Found almost exclusively in southern Africa, proteas have been thriving here for millions of years.

They’re also under threat. Almost half of South Africa’s Protea species are facing some level of extinction risk due to habitat loss, invasive plants, changing fire patterns, agriculture and urban development.

The team behind the campaign believes that giving the Protea an emoji could help introduce millions more people to our unique fynbos and spark conversations about protecting it.

It might seem like a tiny change, but emojis have become part of everyday language. They’re used billions of times every day, helping people communicate across the world. Having a Protea alongside the flowers already available could put South Africa’s incredible biodiversity into everyday conversations.

The thing is, getting a new emoji approved isn’t as simple as starting an online petition.

The Unicode Consortium looks for evidence that people genuinely know about, search for and would use a proposed emoji. Public interest matters, which is why The Wild Rescue is encouraging people to learn more about proteas and the Cape Floral Kingdom.

“If enough people begin talking about proteas – not simply as flowers, but as symbols for one of the earth’s remarkable biospheres – then the flowerbed of the world’s keyboards will make a little room for them too.” says Gill Simpson, executive director of Wild Rescue. “It’s time South Africa’s national flower found its place in the world’s digital lexicon. An improved level of awareness and appreciation will contribute to helping protect our natural fynbos habitats, and encourage simple actions that can make profound differences: like adopting eco-friendly habits, avoiding the picking of these wild flowers, and planting indigenous gardens.”

Awareness often comes before conservation – the more people know about something, the more likely they are to care enough to protect it…

Be a Part of the Push for a Protea Emoji!

If you’d like to be a part of the campaign for a Protea emoji, here are some tips shared by Wild Rescue! People can can help by:

Searching on Google for “protea”, “protea flower” and / or “fynbos” and learn online about the Cape Floral Kingdom.
Sharing images, videos and stories about Proteas on websites and social media. Even the number of published volumes on the subject and the frequency of these words found in digitised books gets taken into account.
Introduce friends from abroad to South Africa’s indigenous flora.
Visit a fynbos nature reserve when they’re in bloom and post online about your experience.
Use the hashtags #EmojiForProtea, #ProudlyFynbos and #CapeFloralKingdom in your related social media posts.
Read and watch content from relevant pages such as The Fynbos Guy, Wendy Hitchcock, the Table Mountain Fund, Cape Flora SA, the Botanical Society of South Africa and Leon Kluge – and share these resources online.
If you’re in or visiting the Western Cape; download the free citizen science platform iNaturalist to record, help identify and share your own observations on fynbos and Proteas, mapping these to their locations.

Because…being able to end a proudly South African message with a Protea instead of a generic flower? We’d definitely use that! 🌸