SORDO’s Revive & Rewild programme continues to restore the globally significant Boswellia carteri frankincense forests of the Golis Mountains and the Uur-Caleed corridor — an ecosystem under pressure from overharvesting, charcoal production, drought and the spread of invasive species. To date, 14 hectares have been restored, including 10 hectares of community conservation areas now formally recognised across two sites, with 2,000 Boswellia seedlings planted against an 80% survival target.

Forty community eco-guardians — half of them women and youth — have been trained and deployed to protect and monitor these areas, patrolling boundaries, recording tree health and enforcing locally agreed harvesting rules. Invasive Prosopis juliflora is being cleared to give native trees room to recover, and soil and water conservation works are slowing erosion on the slopes where seedlings are establishing.

Restoration is deliberately paired with a livelihoods track. Under the related Sustainable Frankincense Production & Conservation for Youth Employment project — delivered with Horn Aroma Botanica and Horn Vision NGO in Bari Region between 2025 and 2027 — more than 120 harvesters have been trained in sustainable tapping and post-harvest handling, doubling their incomes through new linkages with eco-certified buyers.

That pairing is the programme’s central argument: where communities earn more from a living forest than from cutting it, protection becomes self-sustaining. Conservation and income reinforce each other rather than compete.

Timeline

SORDO is seeking partners to scale Revive & Rewild to its full 800-hectare landscape target across the Golis Mountains corridor.