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estebanana -> RE: "Luthiers share your creations" thread (Oct. 8 2013 2:19:08)
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John,
I think we are talking about two different cultures of foresters. I said foresters, not slobs who degrade the environment. I would not call them foresters. Foresters are those who want to harvest from the forest, and like good farmers respect the land and how they steward it.
I would agree about many logging practices in the US, it's corporate and they don't care how they comport them selves or what they leave behind. Sorry they f-ed up your chanterelle spot.
In South America, in Brazil in particular the land has a history of is governed by the military and now paramilitary protectorate force to keep poachers from taking trees. There have been foresters in the best sense of the word like Chico Mendez who tried to work out ways to manage the forest to the advantage of those who live there, grew up there and really realistically should have that land as their cultural patrimony to forest and farm as they need. Those kind of guys in Brazil, like the thousands of other guys throughout Latin America who fought for fair right usage of their ancestral land usually get murdered. It goes way, way back to the times when American fruit harvesting companies first started to control the forests in Latin and Central America. It goes back farther to the Spanish Colonial times, but that is not a practical way of looking at it and has too much historical baggage.
United Friut, the company that introduced the banana to North America, set a pattern in Latin America of controlling local politicians and killing anyone who would not do as they wanted to keep a strangle hold on the forest products and fruit they exported. Every time a forester would step forward and say this is not fair, we are Guatemalans or we are Brazilians we should administrate our own lands, they would be killed. It happened over and over and over and still happens to this day. These guys were the real environmentalists in those regions because they wanted to manage the forests and fields of their own lands without being forced into unfair labor practices, slavery, and poverty. Now what has replaced United Fruit and the big US rubber harvesting companies are local politicians, land barons and despots who gained power through the systems set up by the US corporations. The systems are just Brazil owned and Guatemala owned now.
The harvesting of these woods is big argribuisiness now, the CITES documentation further complicates the relationship between harvesters and final user by adding a layer of certification that can be bought and sold. The CITES documents really don't mean anything except that those who are in a position of power to grant them are liable fall into to all the temptations to act illegally as in any situation where an inordinate amount of power is granted to a few groups or people. In the US when you want to bring down a competitor you out sell them, take legal action against them ect. In Latin America it's the same, only add bribery and murder to get your company ahead.
I'm not involved that world, but I understand it from an intimate point of view because I have family members involved in Latin American economic policy and business. I have seen my uncle siting on his living room sofa sipping a cortado being bribed by corporate "busybodies" to look the other way in his evaluation reports of projects his "shop" would fund or not fund. In the US it's all about the same, they take guys to dinner, wine and dine them, bribe them and offer them gifts. However in Latin America add kidnapping and murder as things you also have to consider if you chose not play ball. This has made me fairly cynical about the wood trade and how I think about Brazilian rosewood.
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My observations are simply my observations, I don't seek out that wood for those reasons. I'm not judging anyone who chooses to use that wood. I choose to use more common woods which are easier to move across international borders and less documentation laden, and I'm happy with my choices.
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