Deforestation had risen, but the increase had started in 2013, a full six years before President Bolsonaro took office. In 2019, the area of Amazon land deforested was just one-quarter of the amount of land that was deforested in 2004.17 And while the number of fires in Brazil in 2019 was indeed 50 percent higher than the year before, it was just 2 percent higher than the average during the previous ten years.18
