Turkmenistan's National Green Belt & Afforestation Programme — Large Planting Claims Without Independent Verification

Turkmenistan, over 80% of which is covered by the Karakum Desert, has run large-scale tree-planting campaigns since the Soviet era to stabilise sand dunes, continuing since independence as a national 'Green Belt' programme ringing cities including the capital, Ashgabat.

A National Forest Programme has targeted roughly 30,000 hectares planted via 3 million seedlings a year between 2021 and 2025, plus a 1.6-million-tree pledge for Ashgabat under the UNECE 'Trees in Cities Challenge'.

In December 2025, Turkmen officials told AFP that 162 million trees had been planted over the preceding 20 years, but AFP said it 'was not able to immediately verify the government's claims,' noting Turkmenistan 'restricts independent reporting and keeps information about government activities largely secret.'

The UN's own SDG Actions Platform page for the programme records that 'no progress reports have been submitted' since registration and that it 'does not yet fulfil the SMART criteria' for measurable targets; FAO separately notes climate pressures and overgrazing are undermining natural regeneration independent of what is formally reported. The stated intent is real and long-running, but the absence of independent monitoring or verification means its actual ecological outcomes cannot currently be confirmed.