According to Christian tradition, Baltasar, one of the three Wise Men, presented an offering of incense to the Child Jesus on the night of his birth. Frankincense is made from different species of Boswellia , a tree that grows in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
Now a team of researchers from Ethiopia and the Netherlands has published a study that reveals that the trees from which frankincense is extracted are suffering a drastic decline and by 2027 their population is expected to reduce by half. Furthermore, they predict that the number of trees could be reduced by 90% in the next fifty years. As culprits of this situation they point to fires, grazing and insect attacks. Members of the study team warn that if steps are not taken to control these three problems, incense production will be severely affected. The results of the study have been published in the Journal of Applied Ecology , of the British Ecological Society (BES).
