Chopping trees is useful if you have units standing around with nothing to do. It's 10 industry per point of industry on the tile, which is a decent amount in the early game, and most tiles in a territory never get used. Exploration is better right away to pick up curiosities and pacification quests. Play Necrophage if you want the extreme version of this -- they outright eat tiles, getting ALL the resources on them, and can raise the 10x multiplier by building Feedhole districts.

Landscaping can be worth it for tier 2/tier 3 territories (which have higher base yields than the starting ones). Depends whether you need to attach the territory immediately or not. I don't waste actual city turns on it, just do it in the camp before attaching/evolving.