World’s Population Strains Resources, U.N. Report Says

The increasing demands of the world’s population, now heading toward 6 billion, are damaging the basic natural resources on which all life depends, according to an annual U.N. report released Wednesday.

The 1988 State of World Population Report said the Earth is gaining 80 million people per year, losing topsoil and tropical forests and creating desert land.

“The Earth is capable of supporting the increasing needs of the next century,” but only if industrialized and developing countries cooperate effectively to reverse the environmental destruction, the report said.

“All countries must face the fact that the combination of population and industrial growth could destroy the land, water and air on which everything else depends,” said Dr. Nafis Sadik, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund.

At a news conference, the Pakistani physician expressed hope that action by governments, individuals and international organizations to curb population growth and encourage conservation and economic development will “safeguard the future of our planet.”

But “population and resources could become more seriously out of balance unless we do something about it today,” she said.