J De Rocher wrote:
Thanks for posting this write up. It's nicely organized and clearly written.
For people taking guitars across a border to display at a guitar show, would they also need a second export permit from the country where the show was to get the guitar back into their home country?
"As this rolls out, the wood you order post January 2017, should come with documentation… I’d imagine."
This is something I'm really curious about how it will work in practice. Taking the case of Brazilian rosewood as an example, PRS guitars has publicly stated that they are under no obligation to provide documentation to their customers who buy PRS guitars containing Brazilian rosewood, therefore they don't. Even though the wood they use is pre-convention.
http://www.prsguitars.com/brazilian/ See fine print at the bottom. They are taking this position even though the amount of BRW they handle must be tiny (and should be manageable) compared to the amount of Indian rosewood that is used by guitar manufacturers in general. I also wonder how this documentation will work for builders who buy Appendix II wood after January.
"It does not matter if it’s Appendix I or Appendix II, CITES only affects border crossings."
Is this the case for Appendix I wood? The FWS document "§ 23.55 How may I use a CITES specimen after import into the United States?" appears to say that without proof of a pre-convention certificate, BRW can only be used for non-commercial purposes.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2014-title50-vol9/pdf/CFR-2014-title50-vol9-sec23-55.pdfI have tried to dig up a clear answer to this without success. There is a constant supply of BRW available from ebay and from non-ebay sources and I expect that very little of it comes with documentation. Are people getting away with violating the rules because of no enforcement, or is it actually ok to use undocumented BRW in a guitar that you sell in your own country? I have some BRW bridge blanks I would like to use.
There are two web presentations from earlier this month that weren't on your list, so in case you haven't seen them:
International Wood Products Association - new rules on importing and exporting Appendix II woods and products:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/rec...25012870722049League of American Orchestras and NAMM - effects of the new rules on traveling musicians:
https://1sourceevents.adobeconnect.c...&pbMode=normalYes, I believe it works like this. For appendix II, anytime you leave a country (export) you need a permit. So, say you
leave the usa, enter the uk,
leave the uk, re-enter the usa. In that series of steps, you would need 2 permits: one for leaving the usa, one for leaving the uk.
For brazilian rosewood, or any appendix I, that same series of steps would necessitate 4 permits, to cover both import and export.
"Is this the case for Appendix I wood? The FWS document "§ 23.55 How may I use a CITES specimen after import into the United States?" appears to say that without proof of a pre-convention certificate, BRW can only be used for non-commercial purposes.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2014-title50-vol9/pdf/CFR-2014-title50-vol9-sec23-55.pdf"
Thanks for bringing this up. You're right about appendix I. I was under the assumption that regulations were limited to borders and what happened within the borders were within that particular countries own discretion. But that was more of a pre-conceived assumption rather than a result of my research.
In fact, looking over that document it's hard to tell what you're supposed to assume for Appendix II even.
"(b) Appendix II with an annotation for noncommercial purposes
where other specimens of that species are treated as if listed
in Appendix I.
(c) Appendix II without an annotation for noncommercial purposes,
or Appendix III, and threatened under the ESA, except
as provided in a special rule in §§ 17.40 through 17.48
or under a permit granted under §§ 17.32 or 17.52"
This lists both "Appendix II
with an annotation for noncommercial purposes" and "Appendix II
without an annotation for noncommercial purposes"
It makes you wonder why there even is an annotation for noncommercial purposes if this document seems to imply that either way it is limited to "The specimen may be used only for noncommercial purposes"
I need to do more research. I'll work this into my second follow up article on this. ...But for now, my head hurts, just looking at it! Lol
"Are people getting away with violating the rules because of no enforcement, or is it actually ok to use undocumented BRW in a guitar that you sell in your own country?"
That is an interesting question, which I plan on also bringing up in the followup. As I understand this whole mess with all rosewoods being put under CITES, is a consequence of the lack of enforcement, or more accurately, the lack of ability to enforce. Unless ALL rosewoods are under scrutiny, it's hard for anyone to pick out the ones that the enforcers are actually interested in. I think up to this point, they've been relying on the threat of punishment, but now they are actually going to more or less bring the boot down, so to speak. Just my opinion. I'm wondering if they will be using some discretion with the rosewoods that they aren't interested in, or if all offenders will be treated the same...
As with anything related to government and law, this stuff isn't intended to be intelligible to the public. So on some level, we have to just wait and see what this whole thing is going to look like.
I'll check out those 2 links. Thanks for bringing them up.