Thanks to Lauren Hadeed at BBC Online(Future Earth) for the Headline
Frankincense is the aromatic resin harvested by hand from the Boswellia Tree. As you can imagine it’s price in trade markets ( £4.2 billion) is determined by it’s rareness. It plays a role in many areas of “wellness” probably going back to ancient Chinese and Indian remedies and probably more recently for incense in Christian Churches.
One of the main geographical areas that frankincense is harvested from has been war torn for a number of years, Somaliland, Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan. When money is short , the temptation is to over harvest. As a result the trees cannot recover from” tapping”. The process of harvesting involves cutting the bark and letting the sap from the tree run out and form a crust which is the frankincense.
To counteract the danger of over harvesting , the growers of the Boswellia Tree are being encouraged to use a phone app which when they bring their resin to a central location and are paid a fair price for it ( cutting out the middlemen). The details of the resin are recorded, where it was harvested, the quality and the movement from the village to the warehouse ( ie. how many third parties were involved). Another app can be used to monitor the health of the trees and their sustainability.
Obviously, with famine and water shortages in the areas that the trees are grown , these situations along with the conflicts of war, threatens the survival of this industry. As a commodity it may become so rare and expensive that it will no longer be accessible to the markets where it is currently sold.
thenotsomightyom 