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RE: "Luthiers share your creations" thread
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estebanana
Posts: 9372
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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 RE: "Luthiers share your creati... (in reply to Jim Kirby)
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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.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Oct. 8 2013 2:19:08
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aarongreen
Posts: 367
Joined: Jan. 16 2004
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RE: "Luthiers share your creati... (in reply to estebanana)
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I feel I need to clarify my point regarding "environmentalists" and their attacks on the lutherie community. First point is simply that if anyone thinks this is going to stop with Brazilian....you are probably in for a big shock. Pretty much all woods are going to be on CITES sooner or later. Anyone thinking that their Indian rosewood guitar is never ever going to mistaken by an overly zealous customs agent for Brazilian is not thinking like an overzealous and undereducated customs agent. Personally, not a bet I'd take.
The issue is not the ban of trade in fresh cut wood or the prosecution of poachers and those who buy wood from them. The issue is the blanket application of these laws that do not take into account old stocks and a real world solution to allow those pre existing instruments to be kept in circulation. IF it was legal when the wood was cut or the instrument built....then it is absolutely unconscionable that the trade or usage of these materials be illegal and subject to insane penalties.
Here's the point, never at any time in the discussion of protecting these species...did the guitarmaking community object. Simply did not happen. What did happen is a fringe environmental group in the US decided that we needed to be taken out and they went to FSW and raised the alarm of the illegal trade in a banned and protected species. They opposed any exemptions being made in the Lacey act, knowing full well that plenty of builders have legal wood they bought years ago or were brought into this country years ago. Remember that obtaining CITES exemptions was for all intents and purposes impossible, unless you have receipts back to the tree. Even the label on a guitar was not enough proof for CITES.
The ban on D Nigra was an international trade ban. It is still perfectly legal to buy within the US or any other country, at least as far as CITES is concerned. That does not supersede your local government, so this now varies from country to country. What Lacey does though is shift the burden of proof on you to prove the wood was not poached....even if it was cut when it was legal to do so. So figure that one out.
Now if you think this group that went after luthiers is doing good work, think again. The spearhead was a woman named Ann Shackleton. She was at the ASIA convention and even tweeted about kicking the furniture industry's ass at one point. Lovely gal. After the ASIA convention she was hired by Bob Taylor to oversee his ebony cutting empire in Africa. So it was just a question of money and power for her... he bought her off and sent her very far away.
My biggest issue with the opponents of modifying Lacey and CITES to allow for us with old stocks and older instruments is simply that they offer nothing to improve the situation in these countries, such as Brazil or Madagascar. They just ban it and hope the problem goes away. What they have done in Madagascar is create a market that has one buyer, the Chinese and they are buying at firesale prices, from what I hear. So the problem is now worse. I for one think all developed nations need to put their money where their mouth is, stop blaming a group that uses less than 1% of all cut timber in the world and address the problem squarely without creating patsies.
But thats just me.
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Date Oct. 8 2013 3:45:16
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: "Luthiers share your creati... (in reply to estebanana)
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With the purchase of a piece of African wood, I had not really thought through and fooled myself into hopefully buying something legitimate. ( Admittedly, so exited about the guitar to be built that I didn´t want to go into it all too conscientiously.)
However, rethinking the matter now with the discussion here, I remember articles which after all quasi illuminated as questionable any trade of tropical / subtropical woods and supply from primare forests.
Reforesting isn´t really what it is intended to be, as reforested areas will not replace primare forest. Similar with selective cutting that may leave the ground harmed with exception of the rare cases of dragging trunks out with the help of horses ( which again I assume is only practiced in secondary woods. Guess over ground roots in primare forests would hinder dragging of trunks) ...
And even the most noble of projects like those where concerned people donate for foresting up will not contribute to the CO2 balance in the ways expected.
Don´t quote me on exact numbers, but if I recall that right a seedling will first of all emit CO2 and yet at the age of 30 years start embeding more carbondioxyd than emitted and release more oxygen than consumed.
( Which also leaves questionable tree farming as trees there will mostly be harvested before such an age of growth.)
Correct me if I´m wrong.
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Question:
I suppose there is no retail that you could obtain exotic woods from with actual certainty of it coming from farming*, or at least from reforesting projects?
Question 2:
Is it that the only way to ensure yourself of not being involved into the destruction of last primare forest refuges, by accessing excluvely humble species from your neck of the woods like pine and northern hardwoods?
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Or what would you suggest for consumption without deserting?
Ruphus
PS:
* Suppose after a mere 40 years of environmental concern and even much shorter history of farming of hardwood trees, there be no quarter sawn sheets broad enough to serve as guitar back, will there?
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Date Oct. 8 2013 10:53:47
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Just out of curiosity, how do you light your photos? 
