The difference between clear cutting a northern forest and a tropical forest has to do with temperature. Tropical soils have a much higher rate of microbial activity due to the warmer climate and as a consequence lose soil nutrients much faster. The additional rainfall characteristic of many parts of the tropics washes unprotected soils and minerals away. Alternating this with intense sun and heat that bake the remaining clay into hard pan make returning these ecosystems to a productive state that much more difficult if not impossible. Such forests do not regenerate as readily as those in the north.
Forests grow back.
Not true in the south, where once the biomass is removed, the conditions to reestablish the forests no longer exist. Nor is there agricultural potential remaining where the organic fractions of the soil metabolize away much faster than in the north, leaving the soil sterile in a very short time. In the north we can make do with a lot less organic material in our soils. In the tropics, a cyclic economy in compost would be critical to long term agricultural productivity. Remember that the ecology of the tropics is magnitudes more complex than in the northern climes.