“Trees grow back.”
In my early adult days I used to take the same road trip several times a year that led past the side of a mountain that had been clear cut. It was quite the “scar” on the landscape.
30 years later it’s grown back over to the point I’m not even certain where it was.
By contrast, the forest where my family used to vacation every year is mostly standing dead wood now, because it has been ravaged by Japanese Pine Beetle. Young trees can defend themselves against it, but protected, coddled old pine trees can't.
Maybe that's what tree-huggers wanted: Forests full of old, dead trees instead of young, healthy ones.