> The real news is that it's also slightly happening in other developed countries too, another rhetoric point towards Steven Pinker's concept that as nations get richer they become more environmentally conscious, cause they can afford to care about it.

I'm not sure it's environmentalism. It's efficiency. From the article.

> In richer countries, where farming has become more efficient, deforestation has slowed or even reversed

You simply don't need as many people living in villages, farming marginal land. New England re-forested because the land was never that good for farming, and it made a lot more sense to work in factories.