Next year's Rio+20 meeting must put science-based innovation at the heart of the development agenda. But the real battle will be political.

Last month's Nagoya summit on biodiversity reached some important agreements. The challenge is to ensure that they are fully implemented.

Politicians won't act to conserve biodiversity unless they have strong evidence that it is an effective strategy for combating global poverty.

Communicating why biodiversity loss matters for people is essential for reversing it.

The fight against biopiracy must embrace both legitimate science and social justice if biodiversity itself is not to suffer.

Is preserving biodiversity compatible with achieving the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals? Judging by reactions to the most recent report on global biodiversity, the answer seems to depend on where one is coming from.

Too often, efforts to conserve biodiversity pay insufficient attention to human needs. A leading economist is now proposing a strategy by which this might change.

New ways are needed of linking science and technology to the goals of sustainable development. But inventing a new field of 'sustainability science' is not necessarily the answer.

A report on the controversy over the potential threat of genetically modified corn to the Monarch butterfly provides some useful pointers to ways in which such controversies could be better handled in future.