States are run by groups of individuals who may not have an interest in said protection of resources. They may have biases one way or another. for example , they may profit from lumber which may conflict protection of parks and forests. Dessimation of these resources happens over long periods of time ( decades in cases). A 60 year old CEO of a business could care less about trees 50 years down the road.
A state may also have conflicting interests in the use of its resources. Do you preserve one at the expense of another ? Perhaps tourism ( visiting some natural resources- forests, lakes etc...) conflicts with tapping large natural gas resources below them.
As far as individuals not patronizing unsavory business, I think the record is pretty clear that we Americans are either oblivious to much that goes on or do not care very much. See our autos of choice.
Our autos of choice? What has Detroit done that is indefensible, other than kowtowing to the unions?
As there is dessimation of resources, the resources become scarce, and supply is far down while demand remains constant, so unless the CEO with the mustache between his index finger and thumb has truly unlimited resources, he can't do all that much relative damage before he buys the farm. Regardless, it doesn't jive with human nature. It is cheap and easy to replant trees, your example, while purchasing new land is expensive and obtaining permits is cumbersome.
The state officials comment would work if we were, say, 17th century England. In fact, we have many different elected officials on many levels (state, county, municipality, neighboring municipality, etc) with different and often conflicting interests. The vast majority of the time, their primary interest is selfish, so assuming they'd like to be re-elected or at least well thought of in retirement, they will protect state resources the public values. There are already laws in place against dumping, etc. so all they have to do is have someone enforce them, and if their opponents or superiors are not, they have selfish interest to call attention to them. To believe that politicians would ignore grave danger to their resources that is naive past the point of logic. To believe that the citizens would ignore it is just plain head-in-the-sand. There was a thread on this very forum that stopped someone from moving tires off the beach without a permit. Do you honestly believe that no one would complain if they saw a few days of runoff passing down the river?