“As you close your eyes and inhale frankincense oil, you see yourself walking in a pine and eucalyptus forest, your steps taking you to a sun-bathed clearing. Here, a steamy spring welcomes you in its warm and surprisingly citrus-scented water. While you thought you couldn’t be more relaxed, a misty incense smoke spreads around you, balancing and settling your mind.”
This honeyed prose from the underlines what was clear two millennia ago: there is something magical about frankincense. In the biblical telling of the birth of Jesus, the Magi deemed it worthy of a king. As wise men, they knew about these things.
Frankincense was once one of the most valuable commodities of the ancient world. Today, we are probably most likely to associate it with the emanations from the incense-burning thuribles that swing in many Christian churches.
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Just recently, the wider world has renewed its interest in the scent. That is creating a problem, with rocketing demand for frankincense oil endangering its supply. It is a classic tale of the conflict of economy and ecology – but the hope is that, in this season of goodwill and promised redemption, this one might have a happy ending.
The backdrop for the struggle is formed by landscapes that could hardly be more different from those conjured up on the Lush website: hardscrabble semi-deserts in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa and parts of India. There, scrubland forests are home to Boswellia, a genus of shrub-like trees whose bark produces an aromatic, cream-coloured, resinous sap. When careful incisions are made in the bark, the sap oozes out, then dries and hardens in the sun. Burned or smouldered over hot coals, this resin releases an intense, sweet aroma.
We have evidence of frankincense being traded on the Arabian peninsula 6000 years ago. The Torah and the Talmud make extensive mention of it, often being sprinkled onto offerings to the deity to give them a sweet smell as they were burned. It was also highly valued as an embalming material, both as an offering to the departed and as a means to cover the odour of a dead body. By the time ancient Greece reached its zenith, a well-organised “frankincense trail” brought the precious substance from the east.
“Frankincense has been traded on the Arabian peninsula for 6000 years”
Besides its continued presence in places of worship today, frankincense is also used in traditional medicine as a remedy for conditions including ulcers, hypertension, nausea, fever, indigestion and coughs, as well as for post-childbirth recovery. It is burned so the smoke can drive away mosquitoes in malaria-affected regions. In parts of Oman, it is found in everything from deodorant and toothpaste to food and drink flavouring.
Boswellia habitats have been under pressure for decades. Rising populations have increased demand for firewood and land for farming. Expanding cattle and goat herds gobble up tree seedlings before they have a chance to grow. These factors are contributing to what forest ecologist at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands refers to as the “cryptic collapse” of the tree population in Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan, the countries from which most of the frankincense comes.
Bongers’s interest in the frankincense forests began 20 years ago with an invitation from one of his doctoral students, Woldeselassie Ogbazghi, to visit these forests in Eritrea. In , Bongers, Ogbazghi and their colleagues looked at 23 populations of Boswellia papyrifera, the species that accounts for about two-thirds of global frankincense production, across Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan. They found that more than half the populations had no young trees. Tree-ring analysis suggested it had been several decades since any seedlings had grown to become saplings or mature trees.
“When you look at active forests where the trees are being cut and used for frankincense, there are no new trees,” says Bongers. “In some of the sites, the youngest trees are more than 50 years old.” With B. papyrifera trees living for 70 years on average, that indicates an impending catastrophe: models suggest frankincense production will drop “drastically and rapidly” to half its current level within 20 years, says Bongers.
Improved fencing and fire breaks, coupled with a concerted programme to plant new seedlings and saplings, could still turn things around, he says. But that isn’t the whole story of µţ´Ç˛ő·É±đ±ô±ôľ±˛ąâ€™s decline. In the past few years, tappers whose livelihoods depend on frankincense have been abandoning age-old practices to extract more resin than is good for the tree and the surrounding ecosystem.
Booming market
Frankincense resin has antibacterial and antifungal properties, and as a sealant barrier, it plays a vital part in the tree’s survival. Taking too much resin during tapping leaves trees vulnerable to pathogens and infestation by insects, such as the longhorn beetle. It also drains the trees of nutrients needed for reproduction. This could lead to the trees producing smaller, poorer quality seeds and underdeveloped saplings that are easily picked off by fires or grazing cattle, says Bongers.
Again, simple measures help. Reducing the intensity of tapping and the number and size of tapping spots on existing trees, as well as implementing tapping-free rest years and using less damaging techniques and devices, can improve the trees’ viability and prolong their lifespan.
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Admittedly, that is easier said than done, says at St Michael’s College, Vermont. She leads conservation projects in the Horn of Africa, particularly in Somaliland, a breakaway republic in the northern part of Somalia. “In a place like Somaliland, they don’t have the resources to have an environmental policy in place,” she says. “It’s hampered by the fact we’re talking about difficult physical geographies and areas where there are security issues.”
Frankincense is one of the few internationally tradable commodities these areas have, so it is small wonder people want to exploit a booming market. Frankincense has become “the king” of the multibillion-dollar essential-oil industry, says DeCarlo. She first visited Somalia in 2011, then again in 2016, and couldn’t believe the difference. “There were new, more powerful buyers and suppliers harvesting frankincense resin more intensively and in different species than before,” she says. “There are people in this business who are not thinking long-term, they’re thinking about their profits.”
Her team is aiming to counter this by training tappers in Somalia in sustainable techniques. Importing best practice from neighbouring Ethiopia might also help. There, government guidelines recommend reducing the number of tapping spots, preventing deep cuts and giving the trees one or two years of rest after three to five years of tapping.
“Consumers need to be made aware of the true cost of frankincense”
Abeje Eshete at the in Addis Ababa says the guidelines have given local producers more awareness of sustainable tapping practices. Rest periods have been implemented in some areas, and the institute is also encouraging tappers to form cooperatives, granting them rights of ownership and shared profits with government-controlled companies, which are entering a market previously dominated by private companies. “These cooperatives are often better compared to private companies at managing resources at a local level because they hire local people who care more about the land,” says Eshete.
The government’s input is still important to bring international expertise about sustainable production, he says. “We don’t have the resources to provide this. But with the right support, both financial and technical, we can improve the situation.”
It is a similar picture in Somalia, says DeCarlo. “We need scientific expertise from every country where the trees grow to make a coordinated effort. But it can be done, it just needs the right amount of oversight and the right form of incentivising.” For Bongers, that means paying frankincense tappers for good-quality resin from healthy trees, rather than for a given amount.
DeCarlo stresses the need to raise consumer awareness of where frankincense comes from and its true cost, as well as to encourage companies to be open about their supply chains. “I’m not going to let these trees go without a fight, but the science is not enough,” she says. “There’s pressure that needs to be put on these companies to be transparent, show where their frankincense comes from and do due diligence.”
Lush, for one, says it is doing just that. “We are aware of the concerns regarding the future of frankincense and the importance of sustainably harvesting the resins,” says Gabbi Loedolff, the firm’s global buying coordinator. She says the company doesn’t use third parties, instead buying its frankincense from one trusted supplier that sources the resin in the Sanaag region of Somaliland. The supplier commits a portion of its revenues towards improving access to water, food security and access to healthcare in harvesting communities, says Lush, and it contributes towards conservation efforts, including funding for a nursery to propagate another species, Boswellia carteri.
Such efforts and more will be needed to allow frankincense to turn the corner. In November 2018, Bongers organised the first international conference on frankincense sustainability, in Muscat, Oman. The location was a deliberate choice. In the mid-1990s, Oman drastically reduced exports of frankincense to help protect its indigenous Boswellia sacra trees, and established large-scale frankincense plantations. It is a far cry from the millennia-old traditions of small-scale tapping – but to save this iconic species, perhaps it is the best option we have.
And gold and myrrh…
Frankincense is under pressure, but how are the Magi’s other gifts faring today?
GOLD
Unlike frankincense, which has become rather a niche interest since biblical times, gold has never lost its lustre. It has remained, well, the gold standard for all that is valuable. That is largely psychological value, however: gold isn’t intrinsically rare or threatened. In fact, when the British Geological Survey put together a league table of “at risk” elements in 2015, .
MYRRH
It seems the three wise men didn’t coordinate well when choosing their gifts. Like frankincense, myrrh is a natural resin. Most is extracted from Commiphora myrrha, another small tree native to many Middle Eastern countries and the Horn of Africa. It, too, has been used through the ages to make perfume and incense, and its breath-freshening properties have led it to pop up in the ingredients list of some high-end toothpastes. The amounts consumed are small, however, and there seems to be no major supply crisis.
