Economic Wealth Or Oxygen To Breath, What's More Important?

In terms of society working a** backwards with our environment, try this on for size.  Did you know that broad-leaf forests in tropical countries cover 1260 million hectares or 9% of earths total land area (1)? The loss of these forests is proceeding at at rate of around 7 million hectares annually, with 4 million hectares being deforested in Latin America alone (1). In terms of numbers that doesn't sound too bad; but when you consider that this 9% of the earths total land is considered the lungs of the world and hosts some of the greatest biodiversity on the planet, that's a big deal.  A great percentage of our oxygen comes from this region, some estimate ~20%.  Not to mention the amount of carbon the Amazon sequesters from our environment is unbelievable.

Why is it that economic gain through harvesting timber and clear cutting for farm land is more important than the health of our biosphere?  What good can come from ravaging our natural resources for economic gain just to suffocate in the end due to decreased oxygen? Or possibly burn up due to an increased amount of carbon in the atmosphere? These are important questions we should be considering as we as a global society deforest arguably the most important ecosystem on the planet. Check out the graph provided below displaying the fluctuations of carbon intake and oxygen production by our world.

Figure 1- Displays seasonal and latitudinal variations in the concentration of atmospheric CO2.  The upward trend in concentration across years results from anthropogenic CO2 inputs to the atmosphere (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory, Carbon Cycle-Greenhouse Gases).

To sum it up, we're clear cutting areas of the rain forest (earths lungs), while emitting more CO2 into the air!?  Seem a** backwards? I believe so. I provided links below to organizations that are educating the public and fighting against rain forest deforestation. If you have others I did not not include please add the link in a comment. 

Rain Forest Concern

World Wildlife Organization

References

My source is a tad dated, but was used anyhow.  A more recent source was later read and stated similar facts where numbers differed slightly. 

1)Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the 

   United Nations. 1988. An Interim Report on the State 

   of Forest Resources in the Developing Countries. 

   FAO, Rome