Certifying Sustainable Frankincense through a Global Value Chains Approach
Somalia and Kenya
The dry shrublands of East Africa are vast landscapes, inhabited by herding nomads and small-scale farmers. Dotted throughout are frankincense trees, a source of incense for global markets and income for local people. Explosive growth in the fragrances sector is creating pressure on this delicately balanced system, with both people and plants increasingly being exploited. With UK Government funding via the Darwin Initiative, FairWild is leading a new project in Somalia and Kenya to make sure that both frankincense trees and the harvesters that rely on them are protected.
A harvester holds unprocessed frankincense
The challenge
For millennia most didn’t even know where this valuable aromatic came from, its source clouded in myth and the subject of far-fetched theories. The amber-coloured clods could make it as far afield as Chinese imperial courts and Roman temples before being set alight. All along, communities in eastern Africa and southern Arabia had been providing the world with this precious substance, picking resin from the bark of trees (Boswellia spp.) and passing it on to traders.
Much has changed in the intervening years: frankincense is used even more widely and in even more forms, for instance. Much has not: still, the harvesters upon whom the whole trade depends usually work without formal training, contracts, or rights.
Traditional stewardship has preserved individual trees and groves across landscapes ravaged by drought and conflict, but a recent dramatic increase in global demand for frankincense in cosmetics, perfume and personal care products will likely lead to over-tapping of trees. Frankincense is also threatened by overgrazing, firewood collection and habitat conversion to farmland. Resin provides an economic lifeline for impoverished families in these remote regions, with price fluctuations and exploitation being constant risks.
A frankincense tree in its natural habitat.
Our solution
That’s where FairWild and our partners come in. We will shed light on frankincense value chains from Somalia and Kenya by making on-the-ground visits, though virtual interviews, and by following paper trails. This investigation will reveal exactly how these informal and sometimes exploitative value chains work. Using this step-by-step map of how frankincense resin gets from remote groves to luxury stores around the world, we will chart a better path forward. Through FairWild certification, we will create value chains where collectors are empowered, treated well, and get to see their fair share of the booming frankincense industry’s profits.
Together with its partners, the FairWild Foundation is rethinking this ancient industry’s straining status quo. We are ensuring that harvesting communities get the recognition and rights they deserve and providing consumers with ethically and sustainably sourced frankincense.
Frankincense is sourced from the Horn of Africa. Our project is based in Somalia and Kenya.
Our project’s vision
If frankincense value chains can be successfully rebooted, we believe there is real possibility for this valuable product to help raise some of the world’s poorest people out of extreme poverty. This project could be the beginning of positive change that is sorely needed in the frankincense harvesting system, deeply pressured but full of potential.
What we expect to achieve during this project:
Improved livelihoods for at least 150 harvesters and their families.
Better management of at least 400 hectares of natural habitat around frankincense groves, leading to reduced erosion and desertification.
Through the FairWild Premium Fund, sustainable development projects to be chosen by communities themselves.
We can’t transform frankincense value chains on our own. Here are our partners:
More from FairWild
FairWild already certifies several frankincense producers in East Africa. You can find them here.