The modern phrasing of "improve" and "develop" for destroy is pretty upsetting to me.

My environment was improved to an unliveable asphalt/gravel sprawl from edge of city with woods with frog and birdsong...

The two meanings are not synonymous. One can certainly destroy land through improving or developing it, one can also do improve it responsibly and minimally.

Building one or two small permanent structures on many acres of forest is not destroying it by a long shot.

Everything you do to waste land area by "lightly" touching it further increases sprawl because it increases the land required to do things.

Environmentalism is in direct conflict with densely packing "stuff" onto land whether that's people or industry. If you want to preserve nature embrace the "concrete jungle" and the density it brings.

Look at historical small towns vs modern build outs of the same population. Despite building maybe four stories high at most 50k people in some New England or Midwest mill town fit on a tiny fraction of the developed area of the same modern population simply because environmentalists weren't around to mandate engineered drainage ditches and green spaces and setbacks and require every podunk business have fire lanes a drunk could back a lowboy into and all planters in their parking lot and the other stuff