The restraint that saves the trees is invisible to the market.
For thousands of years, the cracked earth of eastern Ethiopia has yielded myrrh — a resin that anointed pharaohs and now perfumes the wrists of luxury consumers half a world away. Today, a historic drought is quietly unraveling both the ecology that produces it and the fragile livelihoods of the people who harvest it by hand for as little as $3.50 a pound. Researchers traveling to the Somali region have found a forest thinning at its roots, a community pressed to its limits, and a supply chain so opaque that the people closest to the land capture almost none of its value. The question they are now racing to answer is whether new market connections can be forged before the trees — and the communities that tend them — pass a point of no return.
- A historic drought in Ethiopia's Somali region is killing myrrh seedlings en masse and reducing resin yields in adult trees, threatening the very foundation of a trade that stretches back millennia.
- Harvesters earning as little as $3.50 per 2.2 pounds sit at the bottom of a supply chain so opaque that their resin may eventually fill a $500 bottle of Tom Ford perfume without their ever knowing it.
- Starving livestock eat young myrrh trees, children uproot seedlings while tending animals, and villagers travel up to 125 miles to reach a single functioning well — compounding pressures that no harvest tradition alone can absorb.
- A research team led by sustainable supply chain specialists has entered the region with a focused mission: map a direct path from harvesters to global buyers, bypassing the middlemen who currently absorb most of the profit.
- The window for intervention is narrowing — the adult trees still stand and the traditional knowledge still lives in the community, but without rain and without economic reform, researchers warn the collapse could become irreversible.
In Afcadde, a village in eastern Ethiopia's Somali region, the ground is pale and fractured and the myrrh forests are thinning. The amber resin these trees produce has moved through global trade for thousands of years — from pharaohs' tombs to the bottles of high-end perfumers — yet the people who harvest it by hand today earn as little as $3.50 for every 2.2 pounds collected. Now the trees themselves are failing.
Ethiopia is among the world's foremost sources of myrrh, and the harvesting tradition here has long been a careful one: collectors gather resin from natural wounds in the bark rather than cutting into the trees, a restraint that keeps both the forest and the resin healthy. But careful hands cannot compensate for a climate that has turned hostile. Adult trees are producing less resin. Younger trees — the forest's future — are dying in alarming numbers, eaten by starving livestock or pulled from the ground by children, and withering without rain.
Earlier this year, a research team led by Anjanette DeCarlo of the University of Vermont and resin specialist Stephen Johnson traveled to the region to assess conditions and explore whether harvesters could be connected more directly to global buyers. What they encountered was a community under layered pressure. The drought has been building for years, broken in 2023 not by relief but by catastrophic flooding. Local elders describe watching the myrrh population shrink season by season. At one village well, herders arrive from as far as 125 miles away, and by custom, guests water their animals before the villagers take their turn.
For the poorest residents, myrrh is the only income — and the economics are brutal. Most of the resin is purchased by Somali traders, with Ethiopia collecting no export taxes, leaving harvesters with almost no leverage and no visibility into what their product is worth by the time it reaches a luxury counter. Researchers and local officials alike say harvesters know exactly what they need: a direct path to market that lets them capture more of the value their labor creates.
The trees are still standing. The knowledge of how to tend them without destruction is still alive in the community. But the rain is not coming, the seedlings are dying, and the researchers pushing for market reform are working against a clock set not by commerce but by ecology.
In the Somali region of eastern Ethiopia, in a village called Afcadde, the ground is cracked and pale and the trees that once crowded together in dense forest are thinning. The resin those trees produce — myrrh, amber-colored and ancient — has been traded across the world for thousands of years, showing up in the tombs of pharaohs and, more recently, in the bottles of Tom Ford and Jo Malone perfumes that sell for as much as $500 apiece. Today, the people who harvest it by hand earn as little as $3.50 for every 2.2 pounds they collect. And now, the trees themselves are in trouble.
Ethiopia is one of the world's primary sources of myrrh, a resin tapped from trees native to the Horn of Africa. The harvesting tradition here has remained largely unchanged for centuries: collectors gather resin from wounds that occur naturally in the bark, rather than cutting into the trees deliberately. Researchers say this restraint is precisely what keeps the trees healthy and the resin high-quality. But no amount of careful harvesting can compensate for what the climate has taken away.
Earlier this year, a research team traveled to the region to assess conditions on the ground. The group was led by Anjanette DeCarlo, a sustainable supply chain specialist at the University of Vermont, and Stephen Johnson, a resin expert who runs a company called FairSource Botanicals. They were backed by the American Herbal Products Association and a nonprofit called Born Global, with a specific goal: to understand whether harvesters could be connected more directly to global buyers, cutting out the layers of middlemen who currently absorb most of the profit.
What they found was a community under compounding pressure. Adult myrrh trees are still standing, but they are producing less resin than before. Younger trees — the ones that would sustain the forest for future generations — are dying in alarming numbers. Some are eaten by starving livestock. Others are pulled from the ground by children tending their animals nearby. Without adequate rainfall, seedlings that survive the animals simply wither. DeCarlo said she worries that if conditions don't change, even the mature trees will eventually fail.
The drought gripping this part of Ethiopia has been building for years. The rains have been unreliable across much of the region for several seasons running, and in 2023 the pattern was broken not by relief but by catastrophic flooding. Experts attribute the long-term deterioration to climate change. The area has always been arid, but locals and researchers alike say this stretch of dryness is something different — historic in its severity.
Mohamed Osman Miyir, a local elder, described watching the myrrh population shrink. He spoke of seedlings lost to grazing animals and buds stripped from young trees, and said the community is genuinely frightened about what comes next. The headman Ali Mohamed, meanwhile, oversees a well in Sanqotor village that draws herders from as far as 125 miles away. Hundreds of animals crowd around it. The custom there is that guests water their livestock before the villagers take their turn.
For the poorest residents of the area, there is no livestock to fall back on. Myrrh resin is their only income. The economics of that income are stark: the resin they collect travels through a supply chain so opaque that most of the value disappears before it reaches them. Most of the myrrh from this part of Ethiopia is bought by traders from neighboring Somalia, and Ethiopia collects no export taxes on it. The harvesters at the bottom of that chain have almost no leverage and almost no visibility into where their product ends up or what it's worth by the time it gets there.
Abdinasir Abdikadir Aweys, a senior researcher with the Somali Regional Pastoral and Agro-Pastoral Research Institute who joined the field team, said the harvesters he spoke with were clear about what they wanted: a direct path to market, one that would let them capture more of the value their labor creates and give them a fighting chance at a stable livelihood. DeCarlo, for her part, came away with admiration for the traditional practices she observed. The communities, she said, have long understood how to work with these trees without destroying them — a balance that deserves recognition, not just from researchers but from the brands and consumers at the other end of the supply chain.
The question now is whether that recognition comes in time. The trees are still there. The knowledge is still there. But the rain is not, and the seedlings are dying, and the people who depend on the forest are hauling water across cracked earth just to keep their animals alive. The researchers are pushing for direct market connections that could change the economics for harvesters before the ecology changes beyond repair.
Notable Quotes
Traditional practice is in balance and protects trees. It should be celebrated.— Anjanette DeCarlo, University of Vermont sustainable supply chain researcher
We are deeply worried about the declining population of myrrh trees.— Mohamed Osman Miyir, local elder in Ethiopia's Somali region
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
What's the actual connection between a $500 perfume and a village in eastern Ethiopia?
The myrrh resin in that bottle was almost certainly hand-harvested by someone in a place like Afcadde — someone who earned maybe $3.50 for every couple of pounds they collected.
That gap is enormous. Is it just greed, or is there something structural going on?
Mostly structural. The supply chain runs through multiple layers of traders, and it's opaque enough that no one at the top necessarily knows — or has to know — what the person at the bottom was paid.
Why is Ethiopia collecting no taxes on the exports?
That's one of the things the researchers flagged. It means the country itself isn't capturing value either. The resin moves across the border into Somalia and then into global markets, and the source community sees almost none of the downstream profit.
The traditional harvesting method sounds like it actually works. Why isn't that celebrated more?
Because the supply chain doesn't reward it. Buyers further up the chain don't distinguish between resin from sustainably managed trees and resin from trees that were cut into and damaged. The harvesters' restraint is invisible to the market.
What does the drought actually do to the trees — is it the adult trees or the young ones that are most at risk?
Right now it's the young ones. Adult trees are still producing, just less than before. But without seedlings surviving to replace them, the forest has no future. DeCarlo's worry is that eventually the adults go too.
The detail about children uprooting seedlings — that feels important. It's not malicious, it's just survival.
Exactly. The livestock are starving, so they eat whatever they can reach, including the buds of young myrrh trees. The children grazing them aren't destroying the forest on purpose. They're just trying to keep their animals alive.
What would a direct market actually change for these communities?
It would mean the harvesters negotiate price instead of accepting whatever the local trader offers. It could also mean the brands using myrrh have to account for where it comes from — which changes the incentives all the way up the chain.
Is there any sign the luxury brands are paying attention?
Not yet, at least not in what the researchers found. The visibility simply isn't there. That's part of what this research trip was meant to start building.