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The great acceleration of economic activity and environmental degradation globally over the past decades is creating unprecedented challenges to the goals of sustainable development. In parallel, the redistribution of population through migration has created under-appreciated dynamics involving changes in human well-being, resource pressures, innovation and adaptation, and governance. The PNAS Special Feature to which the present paper serves as an Introduction explores the implications of migration for sustainable development. The challenge of sustainable development is to guide the interactions between nature and society so that they advance the well-being of people in the here and now without undermining the ability of people elsewhere or in the future to advance their own visions of a better life (1). The principal ways that migration can alter those interactions include changing demands for …