Not Just Rosewood Endangered In Brazil

[fortyearspickn]

As far as I know Brazil is still clearing forests to create farmland for the powerful farm/ranch lobby. (1) Apparently, they also open up lands for mining that others feel should be 'protected'.

Anyway - the more interesting story below (2) seems to question whether those who seek to exploit natural resources have any regard for human life. In Africa, of course, they kill animals - mostly to satisfy demand for Ivory, Rhino Horn and Tiger aphrodisiacs, and just to keep the animals off their farmland. ("Get Off My Lawn".)

So ... I have a problem feeling guilty for what is probably the fractional use of Rosewood (Brazil, India, Madagascar) in US guitar manufacture, when it is the opinion of experts that China uses 95% of it. Apparently for furniture and flooring - for the nouveau riche. I appreciate, and support the need to cut it off completely, it would be impossible to approve the use of endangered wood for fingerboards, but no floorboards. I just don't like the idea that I should feel guilty when I purchase a legal guitar, while those in other countries literally 'walk all over' international efforts to stop the harvesting.

 

 

1) http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/02/16/brazil-lost-almost-one-third-its-amazon-rain-forest-in-12-months-agency-says.html

 

 

2) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/10/world/americas/brazil-amazon-tribe-killings.html?mabReward=ART_ACTM2&recid=741856ae-94fc-4733-7fcb-dec1d7407e01&recp=0&moduleDetail=recommendations-0&action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&region=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&src=recg&pgtype=article

[blindboygrunt]

As far as I know Brazil is still clearing forests to create farmland for the powerful farm/ranch lobby. (1) Apparently, they also open up lands for mining that others feel should be 'protected'.

Anyway - the more interesting story below (2) seems to question whether those who seek to exploit natural resources have any regard for human life. In Africa, of course, they kill animals - mostly to satisfy demand for Ivory, Rhino Horn and Tiger aphrodisiacs, and just to keep the animals off their farmland. ("Get Off My Lawn".)

So ... I have a problem feeling guilty for what is probably the fractional use of Rosewood (Brazil, India, Madagascar) in US guitar manufacture, when it is the opinion of experts that China uses 95% of it. Apparently for furniture and flooring - for the nouveau riche. I appreciate, and support the need to cut it off completely, it would be impossible to approve the use of endangered wood for fingerboards, but no floorboards. I just don't like the idea that I should feel guilty when I purchase a legal guitar, while those in other countries literally 'walk all over' international efforts to stop the harvesting.

 

 

1) http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/02/16/brazil-lost-almost-one-third-its-amazon-rain-forest-in-12-months-agency-says.html

 

 

2) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/10/world/americas/brazil-amazon-tribe-killings.html?mabReward=ART_ACTM2&recid=741856ae-94fc-4733-7fcb-dec1d7407e01&recp=0&moduleDetail=recommendations-0&action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&region=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&src=recg&pgtype=article

 

I agree with this. , the importance is to be seen doin something rather than the actual accomplishment of what is being done. Politics is all it’s about.

Guitars aren’t to blame for the lack of rosewood trees. They just aren’t , it’s a spit in the ocean , but some little official is sitting somewhere getting a pat on the back because he’s made a graph look a little better

 

Same with a lot of things

 

But Im not the sort of fella who’s opposed to a walnut d28

Might be spectacular.

If they banned walnut you’d hear a lot of jaguar owners complaining that the dashboard in the new car was rosewood and it just isn’t the same

[theflyingturtle]

As far as I know Brazil is still clearing forests to create farmland for the powerful farm/ranch lobby. (1) Apparently, they also open up lands for mining that others feel should be 'protected'.

Anyway - the more interesting story below (2) seems to question whether those who seek to exploit natural resources have any regard for human life. In Africa, of course, they kill animals - mostly to satisfy demand for Ivory, Rhino Horn and Tiger aphrodisiacs, and just to keep the animals off their farmland. ("Get Off My Lawn".)

So ... I have a problem feeling guilty for what is probably the fractional use of Rosewood (Brazil, India, Madagascar) in US guitar manufacture, when it is the opinion of experts that China uses 95% of it. Apparently for furniture and flooring - for the nouveau riche. I appreciate, and support the need to cut it off completely, it would be impossible to approve the use of endangered wood for fingerboards, but no floorboards. I just don't like the idea that I should feel guilty when I purchase a legal guitar, while those in other countries literally 'walk all over' international efforts to stop the harvesting.

 

 

1) http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/02/16/brazil-lost-almost-one-third-its-amazon-rain-forest-in-12-months-agency-says.html

 

 

2) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/10/world/americas/brazil-amazon-tribe-killings.html?mabReward=ART_ACTM2&recid=741856ae-94fc-4733-7fcb-dec1d7407e01&recp=0&moduleDetail=recommendations-0&action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&region=Footer&module=WhatsNext&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&src=recg&pgtype=article

 

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels guilty. I think the real value here is that you shared that deforestation in Brazil increased 30% in 12 months!

[BluesKing777]

I'll take a walnut back and sides - I have never played or seen one in the flesh but Thomas Leeb chose it as the wood for his signature model Lowden, with sitka top. Sounds great on his videos.

 

How would walnut, maple, sitka and cedar stocks hold up if all guitars were made of it? Probably end up all gone?

 

 

BluesKing777.

[tpbiii]

I have no problem trying to save BRW as a species. But I have a great problem with rules which make innocent people prove they are innocent -- without normal due process -- in a system that wastes huge amounts of resources in time and money and does little or nothing to actually solve the problem. If we have all that resource to waste, at least spend it to catch and punish the guilty and don't come up with some subterfuge that defeats "ex post facto" and "probable cause" constitutional protections. To quote Bloom County, if a million people do a stupid thing, it is still a stupid thing. Or another quote from ALF "On MELMAC, we spend a lot money to discover what can't be done and then we don't do it."