Managing sustainable tonewoods

[Tonefish]

Hi there,

following on from the recent post about Madagascar Rosewood becoming

scarce

I just wondered if any of you guys had any thoughts and or feelings about

how best the supply of tonewoods could be harvested and managed to

ensure their sustainability. I think the debate is in all our interests !

[Tim McKnight]

I think the USA does a pretty decent job of managing our natural resources (trees). Just look at how Red Spruce nearly reached extinction and now it is being harvested again after careful and thorough forest management.

I can't speak to how other countries are managing their resources but I can speculate that some of the third world countries are not looking past the quick fiancial gains of the present market. Brazil seems to be protecting their wood too. Just look at the CITES list.

I typically use about 60% native US woods in my builds. Cherry, Walnut, Maple, Osage Orange, Hickory all make great sounding guitars. I have done three shows this year and my Hickory guitars were the first ones that sold at each show.

[Harmonist34]

Originally Posted by Tim McKnight

I can't speak to how other countries are managing their resources but I can speculate that some of the third world countries are not looking past the quick fiancial gains of the present market. Brazil seems to be protecting their wood too. Just look at the CITES list.

Being on the ground in one of those third world countries has given me a different perspective. The governments of both Honduras and Nicaragua (and probably most if not all other similarly situated countries) in general truly want to protect their forest resources. There are a few problems, however, that at present seem to be fairly insurmountable:

1. Poverty - If you have no job and no land, your options are begging, stealing, or creating a job. Finding a valuable tree, cutting it down with a machete (it can be done, believe it or not) over several days or weeks, then selling it for a few cents a board foot will feed your family for another few days.

2. Corruption - Much of the illegal harvesting in Nicaragua is done to feed the large and profitable sawmills owned by rich Nicas. My landlord is one of them. He freely acknowledges that 99% of the wood processed in his Atlantic/Caribbean sawmills is illegally cut. When pressed, he'll say something like "the restrictions are unreasonable", "it's too hard to get permits", etc. With his money he never has to worry about the government, since individual members of government here can invariably be bought off.

And finally, though nobody ever wants to hear it:

3. The market - As long as you, I, perfume makers, furniture makers, or anyone else in the world will pay several thousand dollars for a tree, it's well worth the time and risk of everybody involved in its harvest, processing, shipment, and sale. As long as guitar buyers insist on traditional tonewoods...mahogany necks and such...the prices are going to stay high. Ensuring that you or I personally do not buy illegal wood does not absolve us of responsibility. As long as the market exists for the resource, it's going to be illegally harvested. The greater the demand, the more illegal harvesting will occur.

As I said, the above seem insurmountable to me. I'm not ready to switch to carbon fiber guitars...and if I was, that would just be contributing to some other problem now or down the road. But I have to call it like I see it.

[TaylorGirl]

I made a post about this subject on the Maddie post..

Sharon