Malthus believer or not, this increase in human population, will place tremendous pressure on the planet's resources. The most pressure will come from the world's developing countries which have the fastest growing populations and most rapid economic (industrial) growth. In 1995, economic growth in developing countries reached nearly 6%, compared with the 2% growth rate for developed countries. This economic growth is expected to continue through 1996 and 1997, possibly slowing in late 1998 through 2000, and accelerating after the turn of the century.

Despite economic growth in developing countries, poverty and hunger continue to expand as economic disparities in these countries continue to widen. One in six people in the world lack sufficient food to fulfill their basic daily requirements, despite increasing food supplies worldwide. There are many reasons for this hunger, including the increasing cost of food against falling real wages and the limited access to food reserves. FAO predicts that food demand in developing countries will grow 1.8% annually until 2010. To meet this need, another 222 million acres (90 million hectares) of new land must be brought into agriculture in developing countries, mainly in sub-Sahara Africa and Latin America. It is no longer a question if forest land will be converted, but what forest land.

Additionally, as developing countries become more integrated into the world economy, they will place greater demands on their own natural resources and as a result, pollution and environmental degradation are projected to increase at a rate exceeding the population growth rate. For example, during the 1980s, the population of tropical developing countries grew by roughly 19%, while their deforestation expanded by 90%. Industrial demand increases for wood, oil, and mineral products found on forest lands. Industrial roundwood consumption is projected to increase over the next few years to supply demand.

One of the greatest threats to the world's environment is the compounding numbers of rural poor who turn increasingly to the rainforests to feed and shelter themselves. These poor, essentially peasant farmers, are frequently pushed off more fertile soils by the large, wealthy landowners who have more political clout. Without realizing it, these poor farmers are perpetuating their own situation by their role in deforestation, which makes their quality of life worse by increasing their chance of disease, ruining their drinking water stocks, causing soil erosion, and leaving their children without the benefits possible when the forest is sustainably used. As the human population grows, the quality of all forms of life plummets as people are forced to move into more and more marginal lands with higher incidence of natural disaster (floods), crop failures, and disease.