More than 50,000 olive trees were uprooted in Jaén to install photovoltaic panels.

Omissions

• The ~100,000 figure reported in the press refers to olive trees affected/slated for removal by a set of photovoltaic projects across several municipalities of Jaén province, not to a verified official count of trees already uprooted.
• Fact-checking outlets (Maldita.es, El Blog Salmón) have examined the viral '100,000 olive trees' figure and stress that it is used in a decontextualised way, and that many of the olive groves affected were already old, low-yield or abandoned; their full findings could not be retrieved within the search budget.
• No official aggregate registry of uprooted olive trees for solar plants in Jaén published by the Junta de Andalucía was found; only project-by-project environmental impact assessments are available (e.g. ~15,000 trees for the two Arjona plants).
• The speaker uses a round, contested figure ('more than 50,000') as a rhetorical device without citing any source, and the numbers circulating range from project-level figures of a few thousand to province-wide claims of 100,000 and regional claims of 500,000 centenary trees.
• Most sources were published in 2025, i.e. before the 2026-10-21 session date, so the MEP could have known them.

Sources

• PrimaryJunta de Andalucía — Environmental Impact Assessment, Fotovoltaica Arjona I y II'Se ha estimado la cantidad de olivos en 11.000 unidades en el caso de ARJONA I y de 4.000 unidades en el caso de ARJONA II.' (i.e. 15,000 olive trees affected by two PV plants in the province of Jaén).
• SecondaryInfobae España'El objetivo: detener la eliminación de más de 100.000 olivos centenarios en la provincia de Jaén, donde varios proyectos fotovoltaicos ya han...' (judicial macro-case to stop the felling of more than 100,000 centenary olive trees in Jaén province for photovoltaic projects).
• SecondaryOleorevista'Andalucía perderá 500.000 olivos centenarios para instalar megaplantas solares. 25 megaplantas solares en 5.500 hectáreas de olivar...'
• SecondaryMaldita.es'A principios de mayo de 2025, una frase recorre internet: en Jaén se van a arrancar 100.000 olivos para poner placas solares.' — investigation of the viral figure of 100,000 olive trees for solar panels in Jaén.