The beauty industry loves argan oil. But demand, and drought, are straining Morocco and its trees

SMIMOU, Morocco (AP) — Argan oil runs through your fingers like liquid gold — hydrating, luscious, and restorative. Prized worldwide as a miracle cosmetic, it’s more than that in Morocco. It’s a lifeline for rural women and a byproduct of a forest slowly buckling under the weight of growing demand.

To make it, women crouch over stone mills and grind down kernels. One kilogram — roughly two days of work — earns them around $3, enough for a modest foothold in an economy where opportunities are scarce. It also links them to generations past.

“We were born and raised here. These traditions come from nature, what our parents and grandparents have taught us and what we’ve inherited,” cooperative worker Fatma Mnir said.

Long a staple in local markets, argan oil today is in luxury hair and skin care products lining drugstore aisles worldwide. But its runaway popularity is threatening argan forests, with overharvesting piled on top of drought straining trees once seen as resilient in the harshest of conditions.

Hafida El Hantati, owner of one of the cooperatives that harvests the fruit and presses it for oil, said the stakes go beyond the trees, threatening cherished traditions.

“We must take care of this tree and protect it because if we lose it, we will lose everything that defines us and what we have now,” she said at the Ajddigue cooperative outside the coastal town of Essaouira.

For centuries, argan trees have supported life in the arid hills between the Atlantic Ocean and the Atlas Mountains, feeding people and animals, holding soil in place and helping keep the desert from spreading.

The spiny trees can survive in areas with less than an inch of annual rain and heat up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit). They endure drought with roots that stretch as far as 115 feet (35 meters) underground. Goats climb trees, chomp their fruit, and eventually disperse seeds as part of the forest's regeneration cycle.

Moroccans stir the oil into nut butters and drizzle it over tagines. Rich in vitamin E, it's lathered onto dry hair and skin to plump, moisturize and stave off damage. Some use it to calm eczema or heal chicken pox.

But the forest has thinned. Trees bear fewer fruit, their branches gnarled from thirst. In many places, cultivated land has replaced them as fields of citrus and tomatoes, many grown for export, have expanded.

Communities once managed forests collectively, setting rules for grazing and harvesting. Now the system is fraying, with theft routinely reported.

But a forest that covered about 5,405 square miles (14,000 square kilometers) at the turn of the century has shrunk by 40%. Scientists warn that argan trees are not invincible.

“Because argan trees acted as a green curtain protecting a large part of southern Morocco against the encroaching Sahara, their slow disappearance has become considered as an ecological disaster,” said Zoubida Charrouf, a chemist who researches argan at Université Mohammed V in Rabat.

Shifting climate is a part of the problem. Fruit and flowers sprout earlier each year as rising temperatures push the seasons out of sync.

Goats that help spread seeds can be destructive, too, especially if they feed on seedlings before they mature. Overgrazing has become worse as herders and fruit collectors fleeing drier regions encroach on plots long allocated to specific families.

The forests also face threats from camels bred and raised by the region's wealthy. Camels stretch their necks into trees and chomp entire branches, leaving lasting damage, Charrouf said.

Today, women peel, crack and press argan for oil at hundreds of cooperatives. Much makes its way through middlemen to be sold in products by companies and subsidiaries of L’Oréal, Unilever, and Estée Lauder.

But workers say they earn little while watching profits flow elsewhere. Cooperatives say much of the pressure stems from climbing prices. A 1-liter bottle sells for 600 Moroccan dirhams ($60), up from 25 dirhams ($2.50) three decades ago. Products infused with argan sell for even more abroad. Cosmetics companies call argan the most expensive vegetal oil on the market.

The coronavirus pandemic upended global demand and prices and many cooperatives closed. Cooperative leaders say new competitors have flooded the market just as drought has diminished how much oil can be squeezed from each fruit.

Cooperatives were set up to provide women a base pay and share profits each month. But Union of Women’s Argan Cooperatives President Jamila Id Bourrous said few make more than Morocco’s minimum monthly wage.

“The people who sell the final product are the ones making the money," she said.

Some businesses say large multinational companies use their size to set prices and shut others out.

Khadija Saye, a co-owner of Ageourde Cooperative, said there were real fears about monopoly.

“Don’t compete with the poor for the one thing they live from," she said. "When you take their model and do it better because you have money, it’s not competition, it’s displacement."

One company, Olvea, controls 70% of the export market, according to data from local cooperatives. Cooperatives say few competitors can match its capacity to fill big orders for global brands. Representatives for the company did not respond to requests for comment.

On a hill overlooking the Atlantic, a government water truck weaves between rows of trees, pausing to hose saplings that have just started to sprout.

The trees are a project that Morocco began in 2018, planting 39 square miles (100 square kilometers) on private lands abutting the forests. To conserve water and improve soil fertility, argan trees alternate rows with capers, a technique known as intercropping.

The idea is to expand forest cover and show that argan, if properly managed, can be a viable source of income. Officials hope it will ease pressure on the overharvested commons and convince others to reinvest in the land. The trees were expected to begin producing this year but haven't during a drought.

Another issue is the supply chain.

“Between the woman in the village and the final buyer, there are four intermediaries. Each takes a cut. The cooperatives can’t afford to store, so they sell cheap to someone who pays upfront,” Id Bourrous, the union president, said.

The government has attempted to build storage centers to help producers hold onto their goods longer and negotiate better deals. So far, cooperatives say it hasn’t worked, but a new version is expected in 2026 with fewer barriers to access.

Despite problems, there's money to be made.

During harvest season, women walk into the forest with sacks, scanning the ground for fallen fruit. To El Hantati, the forest, once thick and humming with life, feels quieter now. Only the winds and creaking trees are audible as goats climb branches in search of remaining fruits and leaves.

“When I was young, we’d head into the forest at dawn with our food and spend the whole day gathering. The trees were green all year long,” she said.

She paused, worried about the future as younger generations pursue education and opportunities in larger cities.

“I’m the last generation that lived our traditions — weddings, births, even the way we made oil. It’s all fading.”

Islam Aatfaoui contributed reporting.

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A forest of argan trees is visible in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

A worker from local government irrigates newly planted argan trees to help fight against drought and deforestation, in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

A woman pours argan nuts to extract oil at a cooperative in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Women crack argan nuts at a cooperative that extracts and produces argan oil and products, in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Fatima Bensaid, who works at a cooperative that extracts and produces argan oil and products, poses for a portrait, in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Lalla Fatouma Boulkmah, who works at a cooperative that extracts and produces argan oil and products, poses for a portrait, in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Rabiaa Reshmayn, who works at a cooperative that extracts and produces argan oil and products, poses for a portrait, in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Kharra Tlaytmass, who works at a cooperative that extracts and produces argan oil and products, poses for a portrait, Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

A fruit hangs on an argan tree, in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

An argan tree, which has been affected by drought, stands in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Goats climb and feed on an argan tree in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

A woman pours argan seeds in a machine that extracts oil, at at a cooperative in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Argan based products are displayed for sale at a cooperative that extracts and produces argan oil, in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

A forest of argan trees is visible in Agadir, Morocco, Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Women crack argan nuts at a cooperative that extracts and produces argan oil and products, in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

A woman cracks argan nuts at a cooperative that extracts and produces argan oil and products, in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Argan seeds are placed in a basket after getting cracked at a cooperative that extracts and produces argan oil and products, Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Women crack argan nuts at a cooperative that extracts and produces argan oil and products, in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Goats climb and feed on an argan tree in Essaouira, Morocco, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Vote counting was underway Friday in Uganda’s tense presidential election, which was held a day earlier amid an internet shutdown, voting delays and complaints by an opposition leader who said some of his polling agents had been detained by the authorities.

Opposition leader Bobi Wine said Thursday he was unable to leave his house and that his polling agents in rural areas were abducted before voting started, undermining his efforts to prevent electoral offenses such as ballot stuffing.

Wine is hoping to end President Yoweri Museveni's four-decade rule in an election during which the military was deployed and heavy security was posted outside his house near Kampala, the Ugandan capital, after the vote.

The musician-turned-politician wrote on X on Thursday that a senior party official in charge of the western region had been arrested, adding there was “massive ballot stuffing everywhere.”

Rural Uganda, especially the western part of the country, is a ruling-party stronghold, and the opposition would be disadvantaged by not having polling agents present during vote counting.

To try to improve his chances of winning, Wine had urged his supporters to “protect the vote” by having witnesses document alleged offenses at polling stations, in addition to deploying official polling agents.

Wine faced similar setbacks when he first ran for president five years ago. Museveni took 58% of the vote, while Wine got 35%, according to official results. Wine said at the time that the election had been rigged in favor of Museveni, who has spoken disparagingly of his rival.

Museveni, after voting on Thursday, said the opposition had infiltrated the 2021 election and defended the use of biometric machines as a way of securing the vote in this election.

Museveni has served the third-longest tenure of any African leader and is seeking to extend his rule into a fifth decade. The aging president’s authority has become increasingly dependent on the military, which is led by his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba.

Uganda has not witnessed a peaceful transfer of presidential power since independence from British colonial rule six decades ago.

Voters line up to cast their ballots at a polling station, during the presidential election, in the capital, Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

Election officials count ballots after the polls closed for the presidential election at a polling station in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

An election official holds up unmarked ballots during the vote count after polls closed for the presidential election, at a polling center in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A political representative speaks as he works to observe and verify the counting of ballots after polls closed in the presidential election at a polling station in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A supporter of leading opposition candidate Bobi Wine cheers while watching election officials count ballots, after polls closed at a polling station in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)