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CC-010 · Land & Trees · Trees & planting

Tree-planting counts

Largely supported Moderate confidence Pledge: Off track as of 31 December 2025 Draft: right of reply not sought

The pledge in this claim

Off track as of 31 December 2025

Off track: published progress is behind that path, and the target has not yet been shown to be met or missed.

About 60,000 trees reported by end-2025 with 75% of the five years gone (parliamentary answer, Feb 2026). The deadline is five years from the 26 March 2022 election; the legislature ended early (election 30 May 2026) and no count for January-May 2026 was found, so the label stays Off track rather than Missed.

A pledge gets a label, not a verdict. The verdict above (Largely supported) is for the factual part of the claim.

Target
100,000 trees in the next five years
Made in
Labour manifesto 2022, pledge 305 (11 March 2022)
Deadline
26 March 2027

All pledges and how they are labelled · See it on the pledges timeline

Parts of this claim

The claim is split into parts that are tested separately, as in the report below. Each part has its own number.

  1. CC-010A More than 8,000 trees and more than 25,000 shrubs planted by government entities in 2024Stated in Project Green's release [1]; self-reported, with no site list.Supported
  2. CC-010B Pledge 305: 100,000 trees in the next five yearsWording confirmed in the 2022 manifesto, PDF p. 91 [2].Supported
  3. CC-010C About 60,000 trees and more than 100,000 shrubs planted through end-2025Stated by the Minister in Parliament [3]; rounded, no project list; Labour's own count is lower, more than 57,000 [9].Largely supported
  4. CC-010D Delivery of 100,000 trees within the pledge periodAbout 60,000 (Labour: more than 57,000) by end-2025, when about 75% of the window had elapsed; the legislature then ended with the 30 May 2026 election, and no later count was found [3, 8, 9].Not substantiated

Claim Check 010 · Land & Trees, Malta

How many trees were planted?

Checking government counts against the 100,000-tree pledge

“100,000 siġra fil-ħames snin li ġejjin”

Partit Laburista, 2022 manifesto, pledge 305
2024 annual count · end-2025 parliamentary answer · snap election 30 May 2026

Verdict: Largely supported Counts confirmed; about 60,000 of the 100,000 by end-2025

Version 1.2 · 5 October 2026

TL;DR

Project Green reported more than 8,000 trees and more than 25,000 shrubs planted by government entities in 2024. The 2022 Labour manifesto separately pledged 100,000 trees over five years. In February 2026, the Environment Minister told Parliament that relevant government entities had planted around 60,000 trees and over 100,000 shrubs through the end of 2025.

Counts confirmed; the 100,000 trees were not reached by the end of 2025, and no later count shows them reached before the legislature ended. The official figures support the stated planting totals, but they are not a surviving-tree count. The roughly 60,000 trees equal about 60% of the pledge at the end-2025 checkpoint, when about three-quarters of the five-year period had passed; Labour's own 2026 manifesto gives a lower figure, more than 57,000. The legislature ended with a snap general election on 30 May 2026. The record does not show that tree canopy increased.

  1. The 2024 figures are distinct. Project Green reported over 8,000 trees and over 25,000 shrubs. Shrubs are not trees and are not added to the manifesto target.
  2. The pledge is real and time-bound. Pledge 305 in the Labour manifesto committed to 100,000 trees in the next five years, from March 2022. The legislature ended early, with a snap general election on 30 May 2026.
  3. The latest official progress figure is partial. A parliamentary answer reports around 60,000 trees and over 100,000 shrubs by end-2025. It gives no project-level inventory. Labour's 2026 manifesto reports more than 57,000 trees for 2022–2025.
  4. Delivery of the pledge is not substantiated. It is rated separately: about 60% of the trees by end-2025, with 75% of the time gone, and no later count. The verdict on the counts is unchanged.
  5. Planting is not survival. Neither source provides a survival rate or a national cohort inventory; Mediterranean field studies show survival depends on species, site and method.
  1. Supported
  2. Largely supported
  3. Not substantiated
  4. Misleading
  5. Contradicted
>8,000trees reported in 2024
~60,000trees reported by end-2025
60% / 75%of the 100,000 trees, against the share of the five years gone (end-2025)

What would move the verdict up

A verified, tree-only planting register for the 2022–2026 legislature, with locations, planting dates and replacements.

What would move it down

Evidence that the official planting totals mix shrubs or vouchers into the tree count, or that the published primary records misstate the quantities.

IN THIS REPORT

1 What was said

On 31 December 2024, Project Green reported that more than 8,000 trees had been planted during the year through projects coordinated by entities under the Environment Ministry, and separately that more than 25,000 shrubs had been planted by government entities [1]. The release names Project Green, Ambjent Malta, ERA and GreenServ. These are government-reported totals; the release does not publish a site-by-site list.

THE PLEDGE

Pledge 305 of Partit Laburista's 2022 manifesto commits to an action plan for tree planting and afforestation and to 100,000 trees being planted “fil-ħames snin li ġejjin” — in the next five years [2]. The manifesto was published in March 2022, ahead of the general election of 26 March 2022, so five years would run to March 2027. The legislature ended earlier: a snap general election was held on 30 May 2026 [8].

In a written answer to Parliamentary Question 34270, the Environment Minister said that, through the end of 2025, entities under her Ministry and entities under other ministries had together planted around 60,000 trees and more than 100,000 shrubs during the legislature [3]. The answer is broader than Project Green alone and does not break the counts down by agency or project.

Labour's 2026 election manifesto gives the party's own count: “Bejn l-2022 u l-2025 tħawlu aktar minn 57,000 siġra” — between 2022 and 2025, more than 57,000 trees were planted [9]. That is lower than the Minister's figure of around 60,000 for a similar period. Both figures are approximate, and neither document reconciles them.

The two annual/cumulative statements have different periods and scopes. Do not add the 2024 count to the cumulative 60,000, or add shrubs to either tree figure. The separate private-land voucher scheme announced in 2025–26 is also not counted here: by 13 May 2026, Project Green reported vouchers issued for 23,000 trees to more than 250 beneficiaries, some of them already redeemed [4, 10]. Vouchers issued are not trees planted.

2 Checking the counts

The calculation in data/cc-010/calc.py divides the Minister's approximate end-2025 tree figure by the manifesto target, and computes the share of the five-year period elapsed from the dates in data/cc-010/dates.csv. It does not assume a straight-line planting schedule or treat the arithmetic balance as a final shortfall.

RecordTreesShrubsInterpretation
Project Green, 2024>8,000>25,000Reported annual planting; government entities.
Parliamentary answer, through 2025about 60,000>100,000Collective figure across relevant ministries.
Labour manifesto, 2026more than 57,000—Party's own count for 2022–2025; lower than the Minister's.
Labour manifesto, 2022100,000 target—Planting commitment over the next five years.
Figure 1. Left: trees reported against the five years of pledge 305, counted from the 26 March 2022 election; the dashed line is an even pace to 100,000, for reference only. Right: at the end of 2025, 75% of the window had passed and about 60% of the trees had been reported (more than 57% on Labour'
Figure 1. Left: trees reported against the five years of pledge 305, counted from the 26 March 2022 election; the dashed line is an even pace to 100,000, for reference only. Right: at the end of 2025, 75% of the window had passed and about 60% of the trees had been reported (more than 57% on Labour's count). Shrubs and vouchers are not trees planted and are kept out [1–4, 8–10].

The figures are approximate and stop at the end of 2025. A rounded 60,000 is about 60% of the 100,000 pledge; subtracting it leaves about 40,000 trees. Counted from the general election of 26 March 2022, about 75% of the five-year period had passed by the end of 2025, and about 84% by the snap election of 30 May 2026, which ended the legislature [8]. No later count was found: Project Green's news from the election to 5 October 2026 reports gardens and open spaces but no tree total, and Parliament's website could not be searched by script. The arithmetic is therefore a checkpoint. It does not show delivery, which is rated not substantiated in Section 4, and it does not prove a final shortfall either.

Do the published planting totals show that the pledge has been delivered?

NOT SUBSTANTIATED

EVIDENCE FOR THE CLAIM'S IMPRESSION

The Minister reported around 60,000 trees planted collectively through the end of 2025, and Project Green separately reported more than 8,000 trees planted in 2024 [1, 3].

EVIDENCE AGAINST

The reported cumulative count is below 100,000 and approximate. It stops at the end of 2025, five months before the 30 May 2026 election ended the legislature; no 2026 total or reconciliation to pledge 305 was located [2, 3, 8].

WHY THEY DIFFER, AND WHAT IT MEANS HERE

The count establishes interim reported progress, not delivery of 100,000 trees within the legislature; nor does it prove a final shortfall.

3 What planting totals measure

The government records describe numbers planted. They do not report how many trees were alive after establishment, how many were replaced, or how much canopy they produced. Ambjent Malta's 2024 report gives a more detailed but still partial example: it reports 7,380 trees and 13,970 shrubs planted in 2024, and separately 3,209 trees and shrubs in Natura 2000 sites [5]. The protected-site figure is a subset and combines trees with shrubs; it is not a national tree-only total.

Peer-reviewed Mediterranean research shows why a planting count cannot stand in for survival. A 20-year Pinus halepensis experiment in arid south-eastern Spain found survival differed substantially among shelter treatments; after 20 years, reported survival ranged from 29.5% to 57.5% [6]. A southern Spanish restoration study also found different three-year survival under nurse-based and traditional planting methods [7]. These are evidence that site and method matter, not survival estimates for Malta or for the Government's cohorts.

WHAT A VERIFIABLE OUTCOME RECORD NEEDS

For each planting cohort: project and location; species; number planted; planting date; maintenance and replacement; repeated survival checks; and, where the aim is greener public space, measured canopy or habitat change. The sources located for this check do not provide a national linked record of that kind.

The EU's MapMyTree register and satellite canopy data could provide separate context, but neither can by itself verify these national programme totals or survival without matched locations and definitions. No such reconciliation is attempted here.

4 Testing the claim, verdict and limits

Sub-claimWhat the evidence showsRating
A. More than 8,000 trees and more than 25,000 shrubs planted by government entities in 2024Stated in Project Green's release [1]; self-reported, with no site list.SUPPORTED
B. Pledge 305: 100,000 trees in the next five yearsWording confirmed in the 2022 manifesto, PDF p. 91 [2].SUPPORTED
C. About 60,000 trees and more than 100,000 shrubs planted through end-2025Stated by the Minister in Parliament [3]; rounded, no project list; Labour's own count is lower, more than 57,000 [9].LARGELY SUPPORTED
D. Delivery of 100,000 trees within the pledge periodAbout 60,000 (Labour: more than 57,000) by end-2025, when about 75% of the window had elapsed; the legislature then ended with the 30 May 2026 election, and no later count was found [3, 8, 9].NOT SUBSTANTIATED

The verdict applies to the reported counts, sub-claims A to C, which is the claim as stated. The pledge's delivery, sub-claim D, is rated separately and does not change it.

VerdictLargely supported

Counts confirmed; the 100,000 trees were not reached by end-2025 (about 60,000), and no later count was found before the legislature ended. Confidence: moderate.

Primary records confirm Project Green's 2024 statement of more than 8,000 trees and more than 25,000 shrubs, the 100,000-tree pledge in the 2022 Labour manifesto, and the Minister's approximate cumulative count of around 60,000 trees and more than 100,000 shrubs through end-2025 (Labour's 2026 manifesto gives more than 57,000 trees for 2022–2025). Confidence is moderate because totals are self-reported, rounded and lack a published project-level inventory.

The pledge is rated separately: delivery of 100,000 trees within the pledge period is not substantiated. The latest cumulative count stops at the end of 2025, when about three-quarters of the five-year period had passed and about 60% of the trees had been reported; the legislature then ended with the snap election of 30 May 2026, and no later count was found. Without a final count this is not proof of a shortfall either. The records do not establish survival, net canopy gain or habitat recovery. The Project Green 2024 and parliamentary figures have different scopes and must not be added together.

Evidence needed to settle delivery and outcomes

  • Publish a tree-only, project-level register for the 2022–2026 legislature, including dates, locations, species and responsible entity.
  • State whether the 100,000 commitment includes trees planted by other ministries, contractors, private landowners or replacement planting.
  • Report cohort survival and replacements at comparable intervals; distinguish shrubs and vouchers from planted trees.
  • Where increased tree cover is the aim, publish comparable canopy measurements rather than using planting totals as a proxy.

Right of reply. Not sought in this draft, at the maintainer's direction.

5 Sources

  1. [1] Project Green, ‘Over 8,000 new trees in 2024’, 31 December 2024. https://projectgreen.mt/over-8000-new-trees-in-2024/
  2. [2] Partit Laburista, Malta Flimkien: Manifest Elettorali 2022, pledge 305, printed p. 89 (PDF p. 91). https://talk.mt/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/MALTA-FLIMKIEN-MANIFEST-ELETTORALI-2022.pdf
  3. [3] House of Representatives of Malta, Parliamentary Question 34270, sitting 435, 18 February 2026, p. 25. https://www.parlament.mt/media/137706/20260218_435o_par.pdf
  4. [4] Ministry for the Environment, ‘Distribution of trees begins to the first beneficiaries of the tree-planting initiative’, 15 April 2026. Separate private-land scheme. https://www.gov.mt/en/Government/DOI/Press%20Releases/Pages/2026/04/15/PR260616en.aspx
  5. [5] Ambjent Malta, Annual Report 2024, pp. 49–51. https://parlament.mt/media/136607/06228.pdf
  6. [6] Oliet et al., Frontiers in Forests and Global Change 5 (2023), doi:10.3389/ffgc.2022.1092703. https://doi.org/10.3389/ffgc.2022.1092703
  7. [7] Rey et al., Journal of Applied Ecology 46(4) (2009): 937–945, doi:10.1111/j.1365-2664.2009.01680.x. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2009.01680.x
  8. [8] IFES ElectionGuide, Malta: Maltese House of Representatives 2026 General (held 30 May 2026; previous election 26 March 2022; results source: Electoral Commission of Malta). Accessed 5 October 2026. https://electionguide.org/elections/id/5161/
  9. [9] Partit Laburista, Int Malta: Manifest Elettorali 2026, item 43, printed p. 168 (PDF p. 170). https://partitlaburista.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Manifest_Elettorali_INT_MALTA_2026.pdf
  10. [10] Project Green, ‘Vouchers continue to be issued to beneficiaries of the Tree Planting Initiative’, 13 May 2026. https://projectgreen.mt/vouchers-continue-to-be-issued-to-beneficiaries-of-the-tree-planting-initiative/

Version 1.2 · 5 October 2026 · Right of reply not sought · Calculations: data/cc-010/checks.csv

Appendix B: revision log

VersionDateChange
1.03 Oct 2026First issue. Right of reply not sought, at the maintainer's direction.
1.15 Oct 2026Corrections: the pledge was framed as open until 2027; it now records that the legislature ended with the snap general election of 30 May 2026 [8] and that about 75% of the five-year period had passed by end-2025, against about 60% of the trees reported (the “2027 deadline” tile is replaced). Added Labour's own 2026 manifesto count, more than 57,000 trees for 2022–2025 [9], alongside the Minister's ~60,000. Updated the voucher scheme to 23,000 trees in vouchers issued by 13 May 2026 [10]; vouchers are not trees planted. Cover note shortened to fit; italics fixed. Verdict and confidence unchanged.
1.25 Oct 2026Upgrade: (1) New Figure 1, trees reported (more than 8,000 in 2024; about 60,000 and more than 57,000 by end-2025) against the five-year window of pledge 305 (75% elapsed by end-2025; the 30 May 2026 election at 84%), with shrubs and vouchers kept out; it replaces the Section 2 tiles. (2) Searched for a count after the 30 May 2026 election (Project Green’s news to 5 October 2026; web searches): none found. (3) New sub-claim table in Section 4 (A–D); TL;DR, a tile, verdict box, cover note, flyer and claim.yml updated. Version and date added to the cover. Cover, page footer and flyer: “pending right of reply” → “right of reply not sought”, matching the text.
1.25 Oct 2026Maintainer decision (5 Oct 2026): pledge delivery rated separately as Not substantiated; overall verdict unchanged.

Sources and archived copies

  1. Over 8,000 new trees in 2024, Project Green, 2024-12-31. Original · Archived copy
    Primary source for the separate tree and shrub totals.
  2. Malta Flimkien: Manifest Elettorali 2022, pledge 305, Partit Laburista, 2022-03-11. Original · Archived copy
    Party manifesto PDF hosted by Talk.mt; pledge text transcribed from PDF p. 91 (printed p. 89).
  3. Parliamentary Question 34270: Project Green expenditure on purchasing and planting trees and shrubs, House of Representatives of Malta, 2026-02-18. Original · not yet archived
    Ministerial answer: around 60,000 trees and over 100,000 shrubs planted collectively through end-2025.
  4. Int Malta: Manifest Elettorali 2026, item 43, Partit Laburista, 2026. Original · Archived copy
    Party's own count, PDF p. 170 (printed p. 168): "Bejn l-2022 u l-2025 tħawlu aktar minn 57,000 siġra". File SHA-256 466a60f920d956bbb30b934606b10dd6ebf7e7d0b9f162702257916a08911ceb.
  5. Malta: Maltese House of Representatives 2026 General, IFES ElectionGuide, Accessed 5 October 2026. Original · Archived copy
    Snap general election held 30 May 2026; previous election 26 March 2022. Results source given as the Electoral Commission of Malta.
  6. Vouchers continue to be issued to beneficiaries of the Tree Planting Initiative, Project Green, 2026-05-13. Original · fetched and fingerprinted 2026-10-10; no public snapshot yet
    Vouchers for 23,000 trees issued to more than 250 beneficiaries under a separate private-land scheme; vouchers are not trees planted.

Right of reply

Not sought, at the maintainer's direction.

How this claim relates to the others: who made it, the themes it shares with other claims, and the patterns it shows. A connection is a reason to read two checks side by side. It does not make either one right or wrong. How connections are found.

Who made it

Project Green Partit Laburista (Labour Party) Ministry for the Environment

Other claims by Project Green 1

Other claims by Partit Laburista (Labour Party) 1

Other claims by Ministry for the Environment 7

Linked directly 8

Claims that share a theme with this one. A theme is a cause, a mechanism, a target or a way of presenting figures that the editors have found in several claims; its strength says how close the link is.

Replanting as currency Shared mechanism · Strong

Tree losses are justified by promised replacement or transplanting. Test survival and net canopy, not planting counts.

Selective-metric pattern Rhetorical pattern · Pattern, not causal

A favourable metric is cited while the regulator-relevant metric looks worse. Useful for tagging, not for implying a common cause.

Same pattern

Pattern tags name a recurring way a claim can mislead. They describe the statement, not the speaker, and this claim's tags are provisional until its report is finished.

Input-as-outcome

Effort counted (trees planted, kilograms separated) is presented as if it were the result (trees surviving, recycling rate).

Promise-without-baseline

A target or pledge with no stated starting point, scope or counting basis.

Two steps away 24

Not linked to this claim directly, but linked to a claim that is. These are found by following the links, not chosen by the editors, so they are looser: they show where one theme meets another.

Three steps away 21

One step further again. At this distance a connection says more about how the themes fit together than about this claim.

Similar wording

Claims whose own words overlap with this one, with the words they share. Found by comparing the wording of the claims, not their verdicts; a lead to read them together, not a finding.

Timeline

What was said, what was published before and after it, and each step of this check, in date order. Statements and sources carry the date they were published. The steps of the check carry the date the research was done, from the check's research log. Other statements by the same body on the same topic show whether a position was repeated, changed or corrected.

  1. 2009

    1. 2009 Evidence published Community-level restoration profiles in Mediterranean vegetation: nurse-based vs. traditional reforestation, Journal of Applied Ecology

  2. 2022

    1. 11 March 2022 Reported PL manifesto: new mechanism to replace COLA, raft of planning reforms, new green areas, The Malta Independent
    2. 2022 Statement published Malta Flimkien: Manifest Elettorali 2022, Partit Laburista

  3. 2023

    1. 2023 Evidence published Mesh-shelters provide more effective long-term protection than tube-shelters or mulching for restoration of Pinus halepensis in a Mediterranean arid ecosystem, Frontiers in Forests and Global Change

  4. 2024

    1. 31 December 2024 The statement Project Green; Partit Laburista; Minister for the Environment (this claim)
    2. 31 December 2024 Statement published Over 8,000 new trees in 2024, Project Green

  5. 2025

    1. 2025 Evidence published Ambjent Malta Annual Report 2024, Ambjent Malta
    2. 31 December 2025 Pledge label: Off track 100,000 trees in the next five years

  6. 2026

    1. 18 February 2026 Statement published Parliamentary Question 34270: Project Green expenditure on purchasing and planting trees and shrubs, House of Representatives of Malta
    2. 15 April 2026 Statement published Distribution of trees begins to the first beneficiaries of the tree-planting initiative, Ministry for the Environment, Energy and Public Cleanliness
    3. 13 May 2026 Statement published Vouchers continue to be issued to beneficiaries of the Tree Planting Initiative, Project Green
    4. 2026 Statement published Int Malta: Manifest Elettorali 2026, Partit Laburista
    5. 19 July 2026 Reported Analysis: A look into Malta’s declared climate emergency nearly 7 years later, The Malta Independent
    6. 3 October 2026 Version 1.0: first issue First issue. Right of reply not sought, at the maintainer's direction.
    7. 5 October 2026 Version 1.2 Upgrade: (1) New Figure 1, trees reported (more than 8,000 in 2024; about 60,000 and more than 57,000 by end-2025) against the five-year window of pledge 305 (75% elapsed by end-2025; the 30 May 2026 election at 84%), with shrubs and vouchers kept out; it replaces the Section 2 tiles. (2) Searched for a count after the 30 May 2026 election (Project Green’s news to 5 October 2026; web searches): none found. (3) New sub-claim table in Section 4 (A–D); TL;DR, a tile, verdict box, cover note, flyer and claim.yml updated. Version and date added to the cover. Cover, page footer and flyer: “pending right of reply” → “right of reply not sought”, matching the text. Maintainer decision (5 Oct 2026): pledge delivery rated separately as Not substantiated; overall verdict unchanged. Verdict in this version: Largely supported, moderate confidence.
    8. 5 October 2026 Evidence reviewed
    9. 5 October 2026 Version 1.1: corrections Corrections: the pledge was framed as open until 2027; it now records that the legislature ended with the snap general election of 30 May 2026 [8] and that about 75% of the five-year period had passed by end-2025, against about 60% of the trees reported (the “2027 deadline” tile is replaced). Added Labour's own 2026 manifesto count, more than 57,000 trees for 2022–2025 [9], alongside the Minister's ~60,000. Updated the voucher scheme to 23,000 trees in vouchers issued by 13 May 2026 [10]; vouchers are not trees planted. Cover note shortened to fit; italics fixed. Verdict and confidence unchanged. all corrections

  7. 2027

    1. 26 March 2027 Coming up: Pledge deadline
    2. 5 October 2027 Coming up: Evidence review due Each finished check is reviewed against new evidence within a year.

Every change to this claim's record is public: history of the record.

Download the report and flyer

Flyer for CC-010: Tree-planting counts