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John Ray
Granada, Spain
blog: http://www.granadaexpert.com/johnray/

Four unrelated thoughts about this:

1) It is tragic. That is a beautiful place and it is shame to see what they are doing.

2) I am unsure how stopping the logging helps the PEOPLE of Madagascar. It seems to me that much of problem in Madagascar has occurred due to political instability and the collapse of other markets (vanilla) forcing the locals to seek other means of income. I wonder what they will shift to when the authorities clamp down on the timber market (drugs, war, human trafficing?). Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating that they decimate the landscape for a few bucks or to keep us well supplied in good instrument wood. But these people are clearly fighting to stay alive and if it is between cutting a tree down and your family starving to death the choice is really pretty simple in my book. I think we should be careful to consider the whole picture when thinking about this issue. I don't think we fully appreciate what these people are going through.

3) If we vilify Madagascar timbers (Madrose, Bois D' Rose, Madagascar ebony) what exactly are we suppossed to do with the investments we have made in these woods? I am standing on PILES of all of that, which was all very legit when I bought it. If we make this the moral equivalant of using elephant ivory in the eyes of the market it will clearly collapse demand and wreck this investment. To me we should be cautious not to write revisionist history and condem woods unilaterally. This isn't the first time this has happened, and I find these practices very disturbing.

4) It really bugs me when web sites disable their back button.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Me too!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Why did those woods seem like a good investment?
Because it was obvious that the supply would be plummeting, due to the unsustainable nature of the logging?
Exactly when would it seem like a good time to stop cutting down those forests?

The possible uses of the remaining forest include environmental tourism, which is a huge and largely untapped source of income, so that should be added to the list of alternatives.

John

??? Perhaps your browser works differently than mine.....

With the exception of a few Bois D' Rose bridge blanks I don't have any. I won't be buying any, so I guess I won't be using any. If I had some I'd use it, and I'd charge alot for it. If someone inquires about building them a guitar with Madrose I've got no problem sending them to someone who has some.

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I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said.
http://www.brackettinstruments.com/

I don't think the parallel to elephant ivory is valid. Trees are like...plants, we don't care for them really. They don't have a brain and blood and stuff, they are inferior even to roaches, we really give them the axe with no remorse.
So people get all fussed up about ivory and fur and stuff, but Brazilian rosewood is very much in demand and people get a drool attack even upon the gnarliest rotten stump leftover, regardless of how shamefully the forests of Brazil were raped and wiped out.

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Build log

I bought it because it was great wood and it was obvious that sooner or later the players would catch on that this is premium stuff (Dalbergia Baroni). Madagascar Ebony is just the best of the best. That is fairly obvious just by handling it. And you know how it goes with tonewood, when you find good stuff you buy as much as you can because the supply is not always available.

I really don't theink environmental tourism is going to catch on in a country that is in a violent political struggle. I agree that could be an industry, but the country has to stablize first.

Don't get me wrong I not advocating cutting down the forest. All I am saying is if you live there and this is the only means of survival then so be it. I think in western countries it is easy for us to play spectator and miss the larger issue sometimes. These people are starving to death.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

My only parallel is people seem to be emotionally invested in elephant ivory. Even those who would not think twice about BRW may give some pause to elephant ivory. I think if the Madagascar timbers end up in the same emotional category as elephant ivory it is going to deflate the value of the wood assets we have all acquired legitimately. (And I think that sucks. )

I agree with your points about the elephants.

And on a side note... I think the issue of BRW is totally different. That was miserable/short sighted management on their part. Similar to what is happening with Mahogany now. The madagascar issue seems to be more of an issue of survival for the people of Madagascar.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

The main (far away before lutherie) factor of deforestation in Madagascar is the "culture sur brulis" (sorry, I don't know the english word), when people put fire on a forest parcel to cultivate on it after. Also they use rosewood to make charcoal of it (very good for that )
I went to Madagascar this winter, I bought some rosewood, in fact I asked a woodworker to carve a log of "bois de rose" in a kind of decorative piece (but not too deep, I told him I will resaw it after to obtain fingerboards) and two traditionnal chairs in a way to resaw it for back and sides sets.
When I told them the price of a back and side in Europe (or, I guess, in USA) they didn't believe me... the total cost for it, the two chairs and the two "decorative pieces" was 75€... 40 fingerboards and 4 B/S sets...
If they could mill and sell theirself those précious wood at the western seller's price it could offer employments and of course the rosewood will be much more preserve, as a précious source of money... The problem is that WE (western countrys and China) buy logs and all the additionnal value is for us...

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http://www.cherubin-luthier.fr
https://www.facebook.com/FranckCherubinLuthier

Yes I understood your point but I am skeptical people will get emotional about Madrose since they hardly did about BRW. Sure we now have lots of people not touching the stuff with a 10ft pole, but the other, bigger half....

I guess an optimistic scenario is the wood gets CITES listed, the government change, poaching drops from raging rape to mild small operations here and there (low profile same as it surely happens in Brazil) and hopefully, by that time, there will still be a couple trees left.

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Build log

I don't think it's so different. It's not only the trees, after all. Rather than killing elephants for their tusks, they're killing birds and lemurs and all sorts of creatures for their homes. Imagine tearing down human houses for the wood in them, and leaving the people that lived there to either find another place or starve. But at least humans can build new houses, rather than waiting longer than their own lifetime for them to grow back.

On the bright side, selective logging is nowhere near as bad as slash and burn farmland creation. Chopping a tree here and there, the forest as a whole remains, and will fill in the open spaces fairly quickly, like a scab. Killing everything at once means a lot more time for the border to expand outward again, and even then it's only new growth forest. So hopefully things will get under control and the forest will survive to heal itself.

In the meantime, I'm avoiding the stuff for the most part. I've got a few bindings and a headplate and a bridge plate, but I think I'll pass on the fingerboards and back/side sets until I'm not indirectly ordering the death of another tree and its inhabitants. Once the logging is under control, either by proper management or by extinction of the species, I think it would be another tragedy to waste all the stores of precious wood on furniture, where sawdust works just as well most of the time. Timber baron Roger isn't so wrong. Once it's dead, you might as well buy it. So when that time comes, I'll probably stock up, but for now, I think it's best to stay out of it.

This is exactly my point. I hope the market doesn't take this as a wholesale approach.

I am standing on HUNDREDS of fingerboards that I bought from LMI back in the day before all of this blew up, and I still have a nice stash of sets as well. All of my stuff was acquired before the political melt down, but try proving that. Regardless of who buys the wood I have (customers or other builders) nobody is contributing to the destruction of the madagascar forests.

Who only knows what the next wood to go through this will be (but my money is on Hondo Mahogany) but what can we do to protect our investments?

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Hard to believe that a luthier does not care about plants (wood). This also suggests that they give a flip about future generations being able to appreciate natural resources and areas. We can always get another planet.

Yeah, that's all good. You're already detached from the logging activity, sitting on a stash that you're not restocking, and thus would be wasted if not put to good use. I wouldn't have a problem buying from you right now, especially if it was for my own personal use. Advertising a guitar made from the wood is a little more iffy, as it encourages other people to demand it, some likely ending up at illicit sources. But that's getting so distant from the root of the problem, it probably doesn't matter. Perhaps I should go buy a set or two off Allied then

It's definitely a tricky situation, and I too hope that the wood itself won't be shunned. Only that the current logging practices are brought under control.

Yeah, it is a tough situation. Clearly Madagascar is a beautiful place and it would be a terrible loss to the world to see that ecology destroyed.

However, when people are starving it is hard to come down on the side of the trees over the people (at least it is hard for me to), and closer to home I fear the guitar builders who have made considerable investments in quality woods throughout the years could see a deflation in demand for these woods and the value of these assets.

It seems the best we can hope for is a more stable political environment that allows their economy to right itself. That will probably take the pressure off of the illicit logging.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com