To substantiate your point, I was thinking about deforestation for farming in Indiana (where I live) and Ohio last week and learned that Indiana was 90% forest until taxes got in the way. It's crazy that something as silly as taxes can cause most of your forests to become farmland.
https://woodlandsteward.squarespace.com/storage/past-issues/...
We are still alive. I wish we had the forests, but we have survived and the environment has adjusted.