That is a good way to think about a lot of aspects of society. For the forest to remain healthy old trees need to die to make room for the new trees just waiting for enough sun to sprout from seed. After a tree falls, the patch of new trees compete to be the next old tree to fill the space. As the years go on hundreds of saplings become dozens and eventually one as the slow growers get shaded out.

Exactly. A forest is always growing and dying simultaneously. On average a healthy forest will grow more than die or be in equilibrium. A forest in decline will die more than it grows. There is also the cleansing effect of fire from time to time. It's a good analogy