A Facebook (FB) post claiming that the Philippines broke a world record by planting 3.2 million trees in an hour is circulating anew. This is false. Turkey (the Republic of Türkiye) holds the Guiness world record for most trees planted in an hour.
Published on Sep. 6, the erroneous post carried a photo showing young men in an open field with this caption: “In the Philippines, they broke a world record by planting 3.2 million trees in 1 hour.”
The false claim is not new. News organization MindaNews debunked the claim in 2023. Five other FB posts also carried this inaccurate claim this July.
The Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry currently holds the record after planting 303,150 trees in one hour in 2019, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
In 2015, the Guinness Book of Records recognized the record for Mindanao’s “TreeVolution: Greening MindaNOW” for the largest number of trees planted simultaneously in different locations.
“The new world record achieved the planting of 2,294,629 trees, carried out by 122,168 volunteers at 29 locations across Mindanao, Philippines,” according to a statement by Luwalhati Antonino, chair of the Mindanao Development Authority at the time.
Reverse image search shows that the photo of the tree planting used in the erroneous post also misleads. The original image, captured by Agence France-Presse photojournalist Ted Aljibe on Feb. 23, 2011, shows a tree planting activity in the town of Pili, Camarines Sur.
“I call bull***t,” a netizen said in the comments section. “It’s true,” someone else added.
The erroneous claim from FB page Mathea’s Garden: Plant & Tree Nursery got a total of over 60,145 reactions, 1,774 comments, and 7,034 shares. It appeared three days after President Ferdinand Marcos said that deforestation in the Sierra Madre was one reason for the flooding that occurred after Typhoon Enteng (international name: Yagi) hit the country last week.
Other FB pages such as FamousPulse, Asian Vibes, Program Motivation, and Young Farmer, as well as an Indian FB influencer, also created posts carrying the same false claim weeks earlier.
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(Editor's Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)