Frankincense is in danger

If until the beginning of the millennium the price of a kilogram of resin from which frankincense is produced was one dollar, today the price has jumped to six dollars and continues to climb, something that "encourages" the resin collectors to cut more cuts in the tree than it can handle and recover

At the beginning of each year, the Christians return and say as a hymn "The three wise men brought gifts for the newborn: gold, myrrh and birch", the newborn is the Jewish child born in the name of Jesus and it is assumed that the gifts symbolize the rare and precious things.

Today gold is mined in different parts of the whole world, but like nowadays, myrrh and frankincense also grew in isolated and unique places, hence their high price.

Like today, so also back then, Moor and Bona come from the south of the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. At that time, the perfumes arrived in camel caravans along the Arabian Peninsula to Petra and Patra to the Mediterranean Sea, hence the name of the road on which the precious goods were transported - the perfume route.

Today, the transportation of goods is easy and fast, and as the world's population grows, so does the demand for easy and fast transportation, and increasing demand causes a risk to the survival of the trees that are the source of the frankincense.

About ten years ago I wrote about the production of frankincense by collecting the resin from the tree (Boswellia) and I referred to the use that is expanding and increasing in religious and traditional ceremonies and also because of a growing demand for the use of materials from natural plant sources.

Added to this in recent years is the growing use of frankincense resin in the global and French perfume industries in particular, an increase that creates a growing demand on a global scale.

It turns out that the growing demand for the aromatic resin endangers the trees. The distribution of frankincense trees is limited to mountainous and rainy areas where most of the trees grow in "Somaliland" (an autonomous region in northern Somalia), most of the frankincense groves grow in the mountain range (Cal Madow mountains) above the Red Sea, where one of the five known species is endemic to the "Madow" mountains and is not recognized in any other region.

Collecting the resin in the mountainous area is difficult and dangerous because of the need to climb rocks and cliffs, but being a vital and important source of livelihood for the residents of the area, they "try" to satisfy the growing demand,

If until the beginning of the millennium the price of a kilogram of resin was one dollar, today the price has jumped to six dollars and continues to climb.

Collecting the resin made by indenting the trunks has always been a traditional occupation as the collectors know how to ensure the prevention of damage to the trees by limiting the number of indentations to six and returning to each tree in a cycle that will allow the tree to heal and regenerate.

However, tradition does not stand up to the growing global appetite for resin and the young collections are less considerate of sustainable utilization and the survival of the trees.

When the number of holes increases and the exploitation cycle shortens, the trees weaken and process the ability to regenerate and live. Added to this are years of drought and extreme dry seasons in the entire Horn of Africa, "over-harvesting" and extreme dryness, the result is upright dead trees. When the trees die there is less resin and the first victims are the locals who lose their source of livelihood.

The president of the "Somaliland Biodiversity Foundation" (Somaliland Biodiversity Foundation) says that "if in the past frankincense resin was considered a product originating from heaven, then if the production without regard for the trees is not stopped, the wild production will turn the lives of the residents into hell."

To prevent a situation from which there is no return, to prevent the extinction of the frankincense trees, it is necessary to deepen the residents' awareness that their livelihood depends on the special tree. Conservation groups in collaboration with government and local representatives are trying to raise the attention of the resin collections so that they avoid overexploitation.

At the same time, they are looking for a solution that will enable sustainable utilization without harming the income of the collectors, for this the residents of each and every village must enforce regulations that will renew the tradition of collecting resin without harming the trees or what is known today in the world as sustainable utilization.

Maybe the "three wise men" who brought gifts to Jesus will come back and tell us how to prevent the extinction of the frankincense trees?