Past unsound agricultural practices coupled with drought and high winds eroded away topsoil in the Great Plains. Because of technology and food surpluses productivity returned to the deteriorated lands. Ecosystem overstress could become devastating especially in poor countries as food surpluses and energy decline and populations soar. (MR)

Discusses global environmental problems and their relationship to the global underclass composed of landless rural residents, urban slum dwellers, and tribal minorities. Argues that economic growth can and must occur along with environmental conservation and protection. (DC)

The report identifies regions in which deserts and arid zones are increasing; discusses social and climatic causes of deserts; and suggests ways to cope with and reverse problems of famine, malnutrition, and drought. Increasingly, land is being sapped of its ability to sustain agriculture and human habitation north and south of the Sahara, in…

Forestry planning is essential if the global trend toward deforestation is to be reversed. World forest trends, although often based on inaccurate or misleading information put out by national governments, indicate that the area of land covered with closed forests has decreased from about 25% in 1950 to about 20% in the 1970s. Major causes of…

Major arguments and background of the worldwide land reform debate are reviewed. In developing nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the control of farmland remains a principal key to wealth, status, and power. Rural landless peasants at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, estimated by the World Bank at more than 600 million people, are…

A key question to ask in determining whether a solution will be found to the current worldwide destruction of plant and animal life is whether people will learn to reconcile effectively the demands of environmental conservationists and developers. Probably the most immediate threat which ecological destruction poses to human welfare is shrinkage…