• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

CITES - What every bass player should know

#181
Folks, I mentioned this CITES issue to my wife, who had an interesting take. She is a designer and over the years has designed interiors and furniture that used tropical woods like Brazilian cherry, etc. Some years ago, in meeting with a well-known and very large furniture manufacturer, she had a discussion about regulation of these woods, which was on the horizon. The furniture maker said that they wanted to have access to these woods for years to come and to do that, they bought forests and managed them so they would never run out of the woods they preferred. He further said in the case of Brazil, this put them at odds with many locals who wanted to clear cut land, sell the lumber, and then use the newly cleared land to farm, thereby destroying the future supply of these woods. I suspect if Gibson and Fender and Martin and Steinway were left alone, we'd have a great supply of tone woods for the foreseeable future, as these companies would see to it and put their money behind preserving the timber sources; by entering this silly CITES treaty, we are quite probably dooming the woods to extinction as forests will be clear cut by locals and the land cleared for farming or development. Something to think about....
 
  • Like
Reactions: GHOST AT
#182
bobwhite said:
I have read several of these posts and am just amazed. What something like CITES really exemplifies is how small minorities of engaged activists run our nation. If you surveyed 1000 people on the street about whether musical instrument manufacture should be regulated based upon the kind of wood used, then you'd get about 950, "no," answers. If you asked the same 1000 people if the use and transport of already built instruments should be regulated in the same manner, up to and including instrument confiscation, then you'd get about 1000, "no," answers. But, the majority view means little anymore.... It is time for a very long petition and other civil measures....
Click to expand...
And what would the numbers be if the question instead was phrased "should people be free to carry the remains of endangered species across the US boarder"? Maybe include a picture of a dead polar bear cub at the top of the page to ensure the response is just as influenced with bias as your version.
 
  • Like
Reactions: One Drop
#183
bobwhite said:
...I suspect if Gibson and Fender and Martin and Steinway were left alone, we'd have a great supply of tone woods for the foreseeable future...
Click to expand...


Do you think a few small american companies can protect and or farm brazilian rosewood, gabon ebony, and elephants on an economically sustainable basis? I do not.
 
  • Like
Reactions: One Drop
#184
Jim Carr said:
Do you think a few small american companies can protect and or farm brazilian rosewood, gabon ebony, and elephants on an economically sustainable basis? I do not.
Click to expand...

Maybe, maybe not.

You should research how Bob Taylor has invested (co-owner, I believe) in an Ebony mill and is responsibly stewarding less classically attractive pieces, etc to extend out usage. That's just the efforts of one company, if you got all the big players involved- perhaps the industry could help.
 
#185
scotch said:
...Bob Taylor has invested (co-owner, I believe) in an Ebony mill and is responsibly stewarding less classically attractive pieces, etc to extend out usage. That's just the efforts of one company, if you got all the big players involved- perhaps the industry could help.
Click to expand...

All good efforts are fine. But if everyone were to withdraw from CITES and have the free market and industry do it, we would be back where we were, with the resources being devoured by the bad guys. Remember the free market includes parties that don't care about sustainability. If you have wealthy consumers without a clue, it also means you get large-scale poachers and smugglers—for real.

After years of heart-breaking and often bloody efforts, a lot of nations have agreed that poachers and smugglers can't be stopped as long as they have a market. Should we simply surrender elephants and rain forest hardwoods to greed and stupidity?

CITES, among other things, is designed to "close" the market for internationally shipped materials derived from endangered organisms.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: One Drop and GregC
#187
IMHO, we could all use more facts, and less opinion on CITES.

For those who have instruments constructed with CITES controlled materials, please report any verifiable experience you have had DOCUMENTING your instrument in compliance with CITES in order to be able to cross international borders.

I have a 1974 pernambuco double bass bow with ivory fittings. My double bass itself, built in about 1850 (yes, eighteen hundred and fifty) has a gabon ebony fingerboard and tailpiece of uncertain age. My Sadowsky has a recycled dalbergia nigra fingerboard, built in 2006. These are all controlled materials.

I am working to document them now.
 
#190
I read several of your quotes and comments. I am talking about wood here. CITES may apply to animals, etc., but that is not what I am addressing. Trees are farmed all across the US, and can be farmed everywhere. As I said, the big furniture company I was referring to above owned and farmed its own forest so it could maintain a good supply of tropical woods for the indefinite future. This is not speculation or opinion, but fact. It not only can work, it does work. It would work for musical instrument makers as well--there are a lot of companies that if they got organized would keep the woods available (and trees growing and replanted) for their own benefit (and ours) for the indefinite future.
 
#191
bobwhite said:
...Trees are farmed all across the US, and can be farmed everywhere...
Click to expand...

Everywhere? Actually, the tree in question here, dalbergia nigra, can be cultivated in a few areas in Brazil in the right conditions, and there are some small attempts under way. Commercial success is not on the horizon, as the trees need decades to reach a large (marketable) size. Some saplings are being used as ornamental plantings in urban areas, but they mostly remain small and do not have space to reproduce.

In addition there are significant complicating problems for rain forests, plantations, and other conservation areas. There isn't adequate genetic diversity among most of the tiny remaining wild populations, estimated at 7% of 40 years ago. Worse, in ALL areas, even in those with less illegal logging, invasive species are having a devastating effect on tree re-population due to the consumption of wild seeds by rodents—mostly rats introduced by human activity.

Besides seeds, dalbergia nigra can repopulate from stumps, but the number one source for legal wood exporters in Brazil has been stump wood. The near total destruction of stumps is actually part of the problem now.


Those are facts. Here is my opinion: things could look much bleaker in the future. Yes, we need plantations, cultivation in conservation areas, protected forests, heck grow 'em in Montana if you can, but right now, that is not happening. To me, it appears economically-sustainable US sourced dalberigia nigra would only be made more likely thanks to CITES.

There is nothing stopping industry from creating sustainable plantations and supporting the many conservation efforts underway.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: One Drop
#192
Jim Carr said:
Everywhere? Actually, the tree in question here, dalbergia nigra, can be cultivated in a few areas in Brazil in the right conditions, and there are some small attempts under way.

There is nothing stopping industry from creating sustainable plantations and supporting the many conservation efforts underway.
Click to expand...

The furniture company I was referring to was farming tropical cherry in Brazil on land it owned. And what is the point of having sustainable plantations, as you suggest, when you cannot bring the wood across national borders because of the CITES treaty?
 
#193
Since you assert that a tropical cherry plantation in Brazil has been prevented from export by CITES, would you provide a little more detail? The taxonomic designation of the wood would be a start.

We can look up it's status in CITES. There are at least a half dozen classifications, and an organism can change status and thus how it is affected by the treaty. If the naturally occurring tree is not endangered, it is not restricted.

The point is that a plantation is not a rain forest.

Illegal logging won't stop until the export market is basically squashed. The treaty is not eternal, extinction is.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: rockchalkbass and One Drop
#194
I'm moving to the USA, and I have an "old" (mid-nineties) Japanese Fender JBass I intend to ship into the USA shortly (along with my home stuff). I have no idea what woods it is made of (I *think* it's rosewood, naple and alder). I only have a serial number. Is there any way to check? Should I be concerned? Should I find a trustworthy friend and leave the bass here?
 
#196
sotua said:
I'm moving to the USA, and I have an "old" (mid-nineties) Japanese Fender JBass I intend to ship into the USA shortly (along with my home stuff). I have no idea what woods it is made of (I *think* it's rosewood, maple and alder). I only have a serial number. Is there any way to check? Should I be concerned? Should I find a trustworthy friend and leave the bass here?
Click to expand...

The fingerboard of this instrument is NOT dalbergia nigra (brazilian rosewood), assuming it is the original neck. Fender stopped using dalbergia nigra in the late 1960's as a cost cutting measure because even then the wood was scarce. Your bass has no protected species of wood in it's construction. It is permitted to freely export, import, and re-export it.

Chile became a Party to CITES many years ago. Here are some contacts that may help you. Please tell your experience to us here at Talkbass.

Invalid Link Removed

There are also spanish and french language versions of the web pages.
 
Last edited:
#197
Jim Carr said:
The fingerboard of this instrument is NOT dalbergia nigra (brazilian rosewood), assuming it is the original neck. Fender stopped using dalbergia nigra in the late 1960's as a cost cutting measure because even then the wood was scarce. Your bass has no protected species of wood in it's construction. It is permitted to freely export, import, and re-export it.

Chile became a Party to CITES in many years ago. Here are some contacts that may help you. Please relay your experience to us here at Talkbass.

Invalid Link Removed

There are also spanish and french language versions of the web pages.
Click to expand...
Was that MusicMan Stingray that was confiscated by Ebay/Pitney Bowes a while back BRW? I would have thought that a fairly new MMSR would not use such wood. Just wondering as I am very prejudiced against many of US gov't agencies to do the right thing (they seem pretty stupid/stubborn/whatever about acknowledging their inexperience at properly identifying various kinds of wood products).
 
#200
Read it, thanks. IMHO it has little bearing on the CITES thread. Customs and shipping hassles abound, even with well-informed, well-intentioned, and responsible parties or entities.

I can see the attraction of grouping all rosewood or musical instrument shipping and customs problems with bureaucratic venality and corporate stupidity and placing the heading CITES over the pile.

The problem is that we can't learn fact from fiction that way, right?

I hope we can soon have an example of someone actually understanding and using the CITES protocol and documents to travel internationally with an instrument containing materials covered by the treaty.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back