This is indeed an important narrative, but it's not a priori clear that you can infer from "the forests are alive and healthy in 2017" to "If we had not instituted limits on sulfur pollution in the 1980s, the forests would be dead now.

I grew up next to some of the world's largest coal-fired power plants that regularly featured in "worlds biggest polluters" lists. The forests were fine before flue-gas desulfurisation just as much as after. Some countries enacted flue-gas desulfurisation earlier than others. The forests were fine before flue-gas desulfurisation just as much as after.

Anecdotal? Sure. But one wonders ...