Ancient farming seen curbing extinctions of animals, plants

Ancient farming practices, such as raising fish in rice paddies in China or Aboriginal Australian fire controls, will get a new lease of life under plans to slow extinctions of animals and plants, experts said on Monday. Turning to traditional farming is seen as a way of limiting what U.N. studies say is the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs vanished 65 million years ago, driven by a rising human population that is wrecking natural habitats. A 115-nation group seeking to protect the diversity of wildlife, which underpins everything from food supplies to medicines, will look at ways to revive and promote indigenous peoples’ practices at talks in Turkey from December 9-14. “Indigenous and local knowledge … has played a key role in arresting biodiversity loss and conserving biodiversity,” Zakri Abdul Hamid, founding chair of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), told Reuters.