Look at any Europe-wide chart on forest cover and Malta appears as an outlier. In 2020, just 1 percent of the country’s territory was classified as forested. Even the second-lowest EU member state, the Netherlands, registered 10 percent. Most of Europe sits far above that. Finland tops the list at 66 percent; Slovenia and Latvia exceed 50 percent. Malta stands alone at the bottom. The graphic is striking, but a sceptic, including this author, might argue that such comparisons