This is the sixth of 7 articles in a dossier (special feature) on ecological engineering - in the sense of biodiversity conservation and the best and most sustainable use by humans of natural resources. It notes that while conventional farming is coming to the limits of its development, the study of the evolutionary ecology of phytophagous insects opens up prospects for the use of sustainable strategies for managing agricultural and ecological resources. The rehabilitation is urged of an approach which instead of producing against nature, produces with it, taking account of ecological knowledge and employing sustainable strategies that consider the evolutionary potential of organisms in the natural community, and their population dynamics and genetics.