Drones could be used to deliver medicines and protect vulnerable people, but major hurdles remain, finds Rodrigo de Oliveira Andrade.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has spawned a series of agreements and technical phrases.

Deep-sea mining in the Red Sea may bring in jobs for scientists. But how will any benefits be shared and what will it do to biodiversity? Paula Park investigates.

With China controlling most of valuable rare-earth mineral supplies, India makes a strategic move to back exploration off its own coast, writes Paula Park.

Controversy continues over the impact of Bt cotton on the lives of farmers in India, report M. Sreelata and T. V. Padma.

Frank Rijsberman speaks to Busani Bafana about his plans for the CGIAR Consortium and the importance of agricultural research investment.

How will science and technology fare at the Rio+20 summit? Aisling Irwin looks at scientists' demands and assesses their chances.

Ten African nations have pledged, ahead of Rio+20, to include the economic value of natural resources in their national accounts.

As commercial synthetic biology production gathers speed, there are growing calls for greater regulation, reports Yojana Sharma.

Efforts to protect precious marine biodiversity by combining science and local knowledge are difficult but can work, reports Naomi Antony.

Yojana Sharma analyses the work of a four-day meeting on access to data and information that will feed into next year’s Rio+20 conference on sustainable development.

When it comes to biodiversity information, incentives need to be provided to improve international sharing of data, report Tracy Irvine and Daniela Hirschfield.

SciDev.Net speaks to UN Environment Programme executive director Achim Steiner at the Eye on Earth Summit (12-15 December) about next year's Rio+20.

New technologies offer the promise of delivering environmental information to anyone who wants it, anywhere in the world. But we are not quite there yet.

A preparatory meeting for the Rio+20 summit will discuss open access environmental data with a focus on biodiversity, water, oceans, cities and disasters. Yojana Sharma reports.

Laura Hood summarises the latest data on the world's biodiversity, with facts and figures on its value and efforts to conserve it.

A better understanding of the wide genetic diversity of indigenous African livestock is needed to secure current and future productivity.

China's profitable rubber industry is a boon for some rural communities, but the environmental costs could be much higher.

Climate change threatens food crops across the world. Now scientists are re-focusing their efforts on crop resilience, rather than yields.