A notable announcement would have been made yesterday at this year's Indian Science Congress at Bhubaneswar, Orissa. The rural, tribal belt of Koraput, Orissa which is rich in floral and faunal diversity would have been formally declared as the eleventh “Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System” (GIAHS) by the FAO-UNDP-GEF group.

Each GIAHS is a remarkable land use system or a landscape, rich in globally significant biological diversity. It ranges from the Andean mountain agriculture of Peru, the Ifugao rice Terraces of the Philippines, the Rice-Fish intercropping or co-culture system of inland central China to the Maghrab landscape of Algeria/Tunisia. And, while Koraput is recognized now, the Seppina Bettas system of the use of foliage and leaf-litter system of the Western Ghats in India is waiting to join the GIAHS family...........Read More

Source: The Hindu