AFCADDE, Ethiopia (AP) — The myrrh resin used in some of the world’s best-known perfumes is under pressure from a historic drought in the Horn of Africa, where trees in Ethiopia’s Somali region are threatened by water scarcity and by starving livestock that nibble at them. The people closest to the trees are the ones absorbing the damage: villagers hauling water, herders crossing parched ground, and resin harvesters earning as little as $3.50 for a kilogram of a product that ends up in bottles sold for as much as $500.
Who Pays for the Supply Chain
Researchers supported by the American Herbal Products Association and Born Global visited a source of the resin earlier this year to assess the situation and to see whether harvesters could get more direct profits instead of middlemen in an opaque supply chain. That is the basic arrangement here: global fragrance brands and traders sit far from the drought-stricken trees, while local communities are left to survive on the margins of a market that depends on their labor and land.
Ethiopia is a major source of myrrh, which has been used in beauty, health and religious practices since at least ancient Egypt. The resin is hand-harvested, and the traditional harvesting methods in the region have not changed, which helps protect the trees and produces the highest quality resin. But the hand-harvested nature of myrrh also raises its price, while those doing the work see little of the profit. Collecting a kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, of the resin brings as little as $3.50 and as much as $10.
The resin from this part of eastern Ethiopia feeds global markets and is used in perfumes marketed by fashion brands including Tom Ford, Comme des Garcons and Jo Malone, with bottles sold for as much as $500. The article said curiosity about myrrh’s other potential uses is growing as global interest in natural remedies increases.
What the Trees Are Up Against
The annual rains have been failing over the past several years, interrupted in 2023 by devastating flooding. Experts blamed the changing climate. The arid region has long seen droughts, but this one has been historic. Myrrh harvesting is threatened because adult trees are generally healthy but are producing less resin, and fewer young trees are surviving.
Local elder Mohamed Osman Miyir said, “Unfortunately, many seedlings are uprooted by children who graze their livestock nearby, and the animals often eat the buds of the young trees,” adding, “We are deeply worried about the declining population of myrrh trees.” That worry is not abstract. The trees are being weakened by lack of water and by animals driven by hunger, a brutal little lesson in how scarcity gets pushed downward until it lands on the roots.
Villagers spend their days hauling water for themselves and their livestock. Herders travel over parched, cracked earth as far as 200 kilometers, or 125 miles, to Sanqotor village, which has a rare well with water. Local headman Ali Mohamed said, “Guests water animals first, then the villagers,” while watching hundreds of livestock crowd around the well. The poorest residents rely solely on tree resin like myrrh for their survival.
What They Call Tradition, and What It Delivers
The researchers were led by Anjanette DeCarlo, an expert in sustainable supply chains and resins at the University of Vermont, and Stephen Johnson, a resin expert and owner of FairSource Botanicals. They found that communities practice traditional harvesting by collecting resin from trees’ naturally occurring wounds instead of making intentional cuts, which makes trees more vulnerable to pests and disease. DeCarlo said, “Traditional practice is in balance and protects trees. It should be celebrated.”
Dahir Yousef Abdi, a guide from the Somali Region Pastoral and Agro-pastoral Research Institute, demonstrated ink made from myrrh in Sanqotor. The article said myrrh, in Islamic tradition, is turned into a black ink used only for writing the Quran and symbolizes the connection between the word and the divine. It also said myrrh burns in traditional clay vessels in homes to ward off bugs and snakes and to fumigate them.
For now, most myrrh from this part of eastern Ethiopia is purchased by traders from neighboring Somalia, and Ethiopia collects no taxes on the goods. Local residents hope more visibility will help them as the climate crisis threatens their ways of life. Abdinasir Abdikadir Aweys, senior researcher with the Somali Regional Pastoral and Agro-Pastoral Research Institute and a member of the research team, said, “They expressed hope that a direct market would enable them to secure better prices, ensuring sustainable livelihoods.”
The researchers worried that without proper rain, other young trees are likely to fail, and DeCarlo worried that eventually even the adult trees will die. In the meantime, the supply chain keeps moving, the perfume bottles keep selling, and the people living among the trees keep carrying water, watching livestock, and trying to hold onto a livelihood that the drought and the market both grind down.