Planting 20,000,000 Trees, My Biggest Project Ever!
The preliminary attack needs to change. The campaign's own records state that the original 20 million trees were planted and independently verified in October 2022. The current Team Trees FAQ also reports that an independent accounting firm validated more than 24 million planted trees. The original proposed accusation of missing verification is therefore untenable.
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MrBeast's Tree Count Was Verified. His Survival Claim Wasn't.
MrBeast's Team Trees campaign made an attractive promise: every dollar would plant a tree, and those trees would have an "extremely high rate of survivability."
The first promise has substantial evidence behind it. The original 20 million trees were planted and verified by a third-party auditor in October 2022. The campaign subsequently reported that an independent accounting firm had validated more than 24 million planted trees. Beast Philanthropy now reports more than 25.1 million trees planted.
But the second promise remains considerably less convincing. The campaign has published extensive planting figures, yet its public reporting does not provide a campaign-wide survival rate. Counting trees in the ground is not the same as demonstrating that forests have recovered.
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The campaign actually delivered its planting target
There is no credible basis for claiming that Team Trees was simply a fundraising exercise that failed to deliver.
The Arbor Day Foundation confirmed the original $20 million fundraising target on December 19, 2019, just 56 days after launch. Subsequent project records identify planting locations across multiple continents. The current Team Trees website lists 104 planting locations, while Beast Philanthropy documents individual projects, including:
- The Great Green Wall: 3.84 million trees across Senegal, Mali and Chad.
- Kenya's Kijabe Forest: 950,000 trees.
- Madagascar's mangrove restoration: 600,000 trees.
- Mozambique's Eden Reforestation project: more than 1.25 million trees.
These are identifiable projects, not merely an unexplained campaign counter.
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The campaign also says donations went directly to the Arbor Day Foundation. Its FAQ describes independent accounting verification covering all completed planting projects, using final reports supplied by planting partners.
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That matters because the real criticism is not that MrBeast invented 20 million trees. It is that the campaign treats the planting count as though it establishes the environmental outcome.
An audit of planting is not an audit of survival
The video contains a particularly important assurance:
"These trees will have an extremely high rate of survivability."
What does extremely high mean?
Eighty percent? Ninety percent? Ninety-five percent?
MrBeast provides no figure, measurement period or survival methodology. He relies on Arbor Day Foundation's professional experience to reassure donors.
The campaign's subsequent verification does not resolve that question. Its FAQ explains that an independent accounting firm examined the use of funds and final planting reports from implementation partners. It says the firm validated more than 24 million trees.
That is meaningful verification of planting activity. But the published description does not establish that the auditor measured how many trees remained alive, how many continued growing, or whether the restored ecosystems achieved their intended results.
The FAQ does not identify the accounting firm or link its audit report.
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This distinction is particularly important because Arbor Day Foundation itself recognises the need for continuing measurement. Its guidance describes post-project monitoring and verification as typically involving annual site inspections, either on the ground or through remote sensing, to measure tree survival and growth.
The organisation understands that planting is only the beginning. The campaign's public reporting should demonstrate what happened afterward.
Arbor Day Foundation
Tree mortality makes the missing evidence important
The concern is not theoretical.
A peer-reviewed study published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B examined tree mortality across 176 tropical and subtropical Asian forest restoration sites.
Its findings were significant:
- Average mortality reached 18% after one year.
- Mortality increased to 44% after five to ten years.
- In open degraded areas, mortality reached 54% after five to ten years, compared with 31% in forest-enrichment sites.
These figures are not measurements of Team Trees. Its projects cover different continents, species and environmental conditions, so applying those percentages directly to MrBeast's campaign would be unjustified.
They nevertheless demonstrate why the number of trees initially planted cannot establish how successful a restoration project has been.
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The researchers explicitly criticised the "over-emphasis on numbers of trees planted" as a measure of restoration success, arguing that longer-term management, protection and monitoring matter.
They also warned that long-term survival research is often biased because poorly performing sites may be less likely to receive continued monitoring or publication.
NERC Open Research Archive
A separate 2024 study by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, reviewed publicly available information from 99 tree-growing organisations.
Only 41% reported tree survival rates, while 61% failed to specify how long their projects would be maintained, monitored or financed.
The study measured organisational transparency, not actual Team Trees performance. But it reinforces the importance of publishing measurable outcomes rather than relying on planting targets and reassuring language.
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What Team Trees still needs to demonstrate
Seven years after the campaign launched, there is no reason to confuse the original planting achievement with the longer-term environmental result.
Team Trees has demonstrated that it could mobilise hundreds of thousands of donors, raise more than $20 million and finance millions of tree plantings.
What remains publicly unclear is how those plantings performed afterward.
The campaign should publish:
- Survival rates for the original 20 million trees.
- Survival measurements broken down by planting location and species.
- The dates and methods used to measure survival.
- The number of trees replaced following mortality.
- The duration and funding of ongoing maintenance.
- Independent assessments of forest recovery and ecological outcomes.
A single global survival percentage would be insufficient if some projects performed exceptionally well while others struggled. The 104 planting locations deserve meaningful reporting at the project level.
There is no need to assume that the trees failed. Equally, there is no reason to accept an assurance of extremely high survival without seeing the measurements.
The final verdict
I would not call Team Trees a failed campaign. The original planting target was achieved, and independent accounting verification provides meaningful evidence that the funded trees went into the ground.
But MrBeast sold more than a planting count. He reassured millions of potential donors that their contributions would produce trees with extremely high survival rates.
That is a different promise, and the published evidence does not establish that it was fulfilled.
Team Trees has proved that the internet can raise millions of dollars and put millions of trees in the ground. It has not publicly demonstrated how many of those trees became lasting forest.
A planted tree makes a good headline. A surviving forest is the actual achievement.
References
1. Planting 20,000,000 Trees, My Biggest Project Ever! — MrBeast, YouTube, 2019.\
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The original fundraising appeal and MrBeast's explicit survivability assurance.
2. Arbor Day Foundation and YouTube Surpass Donation Goal to Plant 20 Million Trees — Arbor Day Foundation, December 19, 2019.\
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Establishes the $20 million fundraising achievement and the campaign's original commitments.
3. #TeamTrees — Official Campaign and FAQ — TeamTrees.org, accessed October 30, 2026.\
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Provides planting locations, project counts, the October 2022 verification statement and the independent accounting firm's reported findings.
4. #TeamTrees — Global Reforestation Initiative — Beast Philanthropy, accessed October 30, 2026.\
Beast Philanthropy project records
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Reports more than 25.1 million trees planted and identifies individual international projects.
5. 5 Things Corporate Sustainability Leaders Should Know About Water and Trees — Arbor Day Foundation.\
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Explains the importance of annual monitoring, tree survival measurements and long-term environmental outcomes.
6. The Road to Recovery: A Synthesis of Outcomes from Ecosystem Restoration in Tropical and Sub-tropical Asian Forests — Lindsay F. Banin et al., Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2023.\
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Examines mortality across 176 restoration sites and documents why planted-tree counts cannot substitute for survival measurements.
7. Advances and Shortfalls in Applying Best Practices to Global Tree-Growing Efforts — Spencer C. Schubert et al., Conservation Letters, January 22, 2024.\
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Examines public accountability across 99 organisations and documents substantial gaps in survival reporting and long-term maintenance commitments.