[nitwit005]

Chopping down or burning a bunch of forest hardly seems like it's going to make Brazil rich.

Some of the worlds major economic success stories are countries with few natural resources, Taiwan being a common example. At the same time, there are a number of countries heavily exploiting their resources, yet seemingly without alleviating their poverty.

There are plenty of places trying to re-forest, which also suggests that you might get stuck with the long term cost of trying to undo the damage done.