Reason & the Rain Forest

We all hear how the rain forests of the world are disappearing. We all hear reasons: the people need to eat today more than they need to breathe tomorrow ... The developed nations have suckered the Third World into hock, and now they have to burn their capital ...

Fine. But we should be suspicious of reasons offered by those in the game. What reasons might a disinterested Martian come up with? Well, I don't know any disinterested Martians to ask, but I'll pretend that I'm one:If humans won't restrain their own growth, natural forces will have to (and natural forces aren't altogether stupid: just slow). The rain forests are the lungs of the earth. Maybe "Nature" doesn't want us to breathe tomorrow and knows that we're short-sighted today.
Etc. But here's another angle: a kleptocratic angle:
Governments like to know where things are: their resources, their enemies, their slaves ... Once upon a time a people, sensing an enemy, could "disappear" into the woods. The South American governments have found that exterminating Amazon tribes isn't always easy: some of them just disappear. We in the north had the same problem: with Apaches and so forth.
When someone wants to kill school children, it's a piece of cake: because the government has herded them all into a school. Fish in a barrel. If someone wants to kill strikers, it's easy: they're striking at the factory!
So: if we destroy the rain forest, and all concentrate into camps, whoever wants to destroy us will find us easy to find. There will be nowhere to hide.OK, that's government. But who says Nature can't use government for its own purposes?