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 successfully led a project in Somalia and Kenya to ensure 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. Over two years from 2024 to 2026, we 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 revealed 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 products around the world, we charted a better path forward. Through FairWild certification, we created value chains where collectors are empowered, treated well, and get to see their fair share of the booming frankincense industry’s profits. 

Together with our 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.

Takeaways from our project

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 showed that such a reboot is possible. By leveraging and influencing industry’s growing interest in responsibly sourced frankincense, people and land were protected on a significant scale. We found that suppliers, manufacturers, traders, and brands alike are all eager to help modernise the supply chain. What must come next is a major effort to create a roadmap with the sector and guide all relevant stakeholders down it. Our key learning has been that the frankincense sector is deeply pressured, but full of potential.

Key achievements 

• Dignified livelihoods for 240 frankincense harvesters and their families. 

• Improved management of 15,000 hectares of natural habitat around frankincense groves, leading to reduced erosion and desertification. 

Our resources:

Access the Compendium of Best Practice: Frankincense and Myrrh to learn about how exactly responsible supply chains can be built in the gums and resins sector.

Here are the partners that helped make this project successful:

Funded by the UK Government through Darwin Initiative

More from FairWild

FairWild already certifies several frankincense producers in East Africa. You can find them here.