Give this man a humanitarian award!

[Crazykiwi]

http://www.duncanafrica.com/

I found out about Jay through a friend of a friend who knows him and promised him to spread the word about what he's doing.

The basic idea is this:
Instead of blowing a load of resources shipping all the exotic hardwood from economically deprived countries to the place where the skilled luthiers are, wouldn't it be more responsible to ship the skills to the place where the wood is?

I want to give this guy a standing ovation for having a global humanitarian perspective on guitar making. Unfortunately he's got no plans to make acoustic bass guitars in the forseeable future, but he has made uprights in the past...

[mje]

Originally Posted by Crazykiwi

http://www.duncanafrica.com/

The basic idea is this:
Instead of blowing a load of resources shipping all the exotic hardwood from economically deprived countries to the place where the skilled luthiers are, wouldn't it be more responsible to ship the skills to the place where the wood is?

Perhaps. But the people who own the wood would probably get a lot more for it by exporting it to luthiers around the world. That way they could make as good a living selling less wood, and conserving it. If they didn't export any wood, they might find that it was best used as firewood.

You might equally argue that instead of mining indium in Africa a nd shipping it around the Pacific Rim to use in manufacturing LCD displays, they should make the displays there. So why don't they?

[Crazykiwi]

Originally Posted by mje

Perhaps. But the people who own the wood would probably get a lot more for it by exporting it to luthiers around the world.

Your point is moot. Maybe, maybe not. What you're missing is that there's a process of empowerment here.

Originally Posted by mje

That way they could make as good a living selling less wood, and conserving it. If they didn't export any wood, they might find that it was best used as firewood.

Most of the sawmills in third world countries are not owned by villages.

Originally Posted by mje

You might equally argue that instead of mining indium in Africa a nd shipping it around the Pacific Rim to use in manufacturing LCD displays, they should make the displays there. So why don't they?

A completely fallacious argument because there are completely different manufacturing processes involved.