Brazil is an example of what is wrong with humans. If there is an abundance of some resource (oil, forest land), then it will be driven into oblivion in the fastest way to make some easy money. Zero long term planning and provisioning. Just pretend it will last forever. Like the old growth white pine in Canada which was destroyed in less than 50 years.
Another fine example of this principle at work applies to what was once the world's most productive fishery, bar none. For generations, North Atlantic cod fed millions and employed 50,000 New England fishermen. The cod was such a moneymaker that better technology and larger ships were employed for ever-larger catches. The sickening greed reached its climax in the late 1980s. When government regulators attempted to institute limits, the reaction from the fishing lobby was explosive. Despite the best efforts of environmentalists and scientists, the feeding frenzy continued unabated. The regulators and fishermen reasoned there would be signs if the fishery was in peril. Scientists tried to explain the concept of functional extinction, but nobody was listening. Then came the apocalypse. In 1991 the boats returned with zero catch- not greatly reduced, but nothing as if the cod had in the space of one year disappeared. The reaction was panic and finger-pointing. A total fishing moratorium was immediately instituted hoping the cod would return in a few years. They didn't. The commercial fishing ban still exists while the fishing industry was cratered and the hopium disappeared with the cod long ago.
Despite the passage of almost 30 years, the cod has never recovered to its pre-collapse level nor is it slowly rebuilding.