By: Reuters, 12/09/2013

OSLO, Dec 9 (Reuters) - 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 Dec. 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.

Intercontinental Cry, By: Curtis Kline, 08/31/2013

While carrying out peaceful actions to defend their territory from the illegal exploitation of natural resources and forest clearing, three Indigenous Tolupan from Yoro district in Honduras, María Enriqueta Matute, Armando Funez Medina and Ricardo Soto Funez, were murdered on Sunday.

At the time, the Tolupan community of San Francisco de Locomapa was carrying out a peaceful demonstration to protest the installation of a mine in their territories. Exercising their legitimate right to the protection of their environment and their livelihoods, the community organized a roadblock, preventing all vehicles from gaining access to any minerals.

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