Many of the world’s tonewood species have been pushed to the brink of extinction by illegal logging.

Musicians need to be responsible stewards of the world’s forests, both for their own sake and to ensure that future generations of musicians have access to these materials.

The US Lacey Act is an important tool in this effort – it bans import of illegally logged wood and other forest products, helping ensure that no musician has to worry that his or her guitar, violin, or any other instrument is made from wood that is illegally harvested.

According to a recent report by Chatham House, the Lacey Act is succeeding – helping reduce illegal logging by 22 percent around the world.

But huge industry forces – both US and international – are working hard together with their Washington lobbyists to attack the Lacey Act’s forest protections.

These companies want to continue to convert rainforests into pulp and paper and other products and still have access to the giant US market for products made from irresponsible and illegal practices.

Help ensure a future for forests and music by standing up against efforts to weaken the Lacey Act and other forest protections by calling on the music industry and Congress to protect our forests and ensure a future for great music.

Sign the petition against downgrading the Lacey Act which aims to combat the illegal trade in timber

African blackwood is the primary component in many woodwind instruments including clarinets, oboes, flutes and recorders. The species is under severe threat due to over-exploitation almost entirely for the music industry.

However, a pioneering project in Tanzania has given communities ownership of the forest and they are now managing the resource in a sustainable way whilst also earning money to pay for community development including clean water systems and healthcare facilities.

During Music and Sustainability, James and Huw will demonstrate how this project is making a huge difference to the lives of people in Africa and explain the  role that musicians play in sustainable development and the preservation of forests.

Available dates:
12th – 16th March 2012
19th – 23rd March 2012

Feedback on previous Sound & Fair music colleges visits

Belinda Gough, Head of Woodwind, Chethams School of Music: “The presentation was wonderful. It provided our students with engaging ideas and clearer understanding of the context of the changing world we live in and that taking individual responsibility is paramount.

“It was such a treat to meet James Laizer, whose message was poignant. To think that our instruments have the potential to provide communities with the things we take for granted, such as a midwife and clean water, is something quite special.”

READ ABOUT THE SOUND & FAIR MUSIC COLLEGE TOUR 2011

Music and Sustainability – National Curriculum connections

Music and Sustainability provides an opportunity for students to learn through the cross-curricular Global Dimension and Sustainable Development aspect of the National Curriculum. Our assembly presentations and workshops raise awareness about the global trade that is intrinsic to musical instrument manufacturing and the challenges of ensuring both Fair Trade and the responsible management of forests.

Assembly presentation / introduction to Music and Sustainability (20-40mins)
Students will hear the distinctive voices of different woodwind instruments and see images of the stunning trees that provide the timber for their manufacture. Students will learn about the qualities of different woods that make them suitable for different parts of musical instruments and where this timber originates from. With group participation, our presenters will draw young people into seeking answers to the following questions: Why are modern woodwind instruments made from tropical timbers? Can this wood be harvested in a sustainable way? How can local villagers benefit from selling the wood they responsibly cut down? What can young musicians do to support sustainable development?

Workshop 1: African forest management role play workshop (20 mins)
After a briefing from an African forest manager, the group divides into groups of five and within each group, students take on the role of: timber merchant, village chief, midwife, lumberjack, and politician. Each group debates the issues and considers
change from the point of view of their allocated roles. A spokesperson from each group reports back their debate and students compare the different results from each group, finding that balancing interests is far from straightforward.

Workshop 2: musical timbers, properties, uses and qualities (up to 40mins)
During this hands-on workshop, students consider the properties of a variety of different woods – in particular the wood used to make the musical instruments they are familiar with, handling, describing and responding to the wood. Students experiment with the wood to find out how dense it is. Using a map of the world, they find each wood’s country of origin and consider the impact harvesting may have on local communities and ecosystems.

Workshop 3: mind maps for the trees that make music (up to 40 mins)
Students draw out mind map diagrams for the trees that make an instrument. For instruments made of many trees, such as the string family and piano, the mind map is complex, and students are able to make links between instruments, and understand the unexpected and conflicting interactions that they find around the edges of their mind maps.

Learning outcomes

Students are able to:
• Describe different perspectives and debate the challenges of Fair Trade and sustainable forest management;
• Develop critical skills to analyse the political and social causes of destructive forest clearance;
• Make links between music, geography and citizenship in terms of how musical instruments are manufactured
and at what cost to global natural resources;
• Develop their cultural understanding of the development of modern musical instruments.

The order is in line with the company’s firm policy of only buying wood from legally verified, sustainable and independently cerified sources.

These environmental principles have been communicated via a series of Wood Summits hosted at Martin Guitar headquarters in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

Tom Roche of Sound & Fair partner, Just Forests, attended the last Wood Summit in May 2011 and was left in no doubt of Martin Guitar’s intentions with regards to sustainable wood sourcing:

“There was no doubt whatsoever that Martin meant ‘business as usual’ was not part of their plans.

“They told the North American and European timber traders gathered at the Wood Summit that unless they can prove without any shadow of doubt that all woods supplied to Martin Guitars is both legal, sustainable and independently-certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, Martin Guitars would not do business with them.

“They also emphasized the importance of all their timber suppliers complying with the US Lacey Act and the new EU ‘due diligence’ timber regulations, due to come into force in 2013, which makes it an offence to trade in timber and wood-based products from illegal and questionable sources.”

The FSC®-certified wood originates from community-managed forests in Tanzania and with Martin Guitar already being FSC chain-of-custody-certified, the wood can be used to make FSC 100% instruments carrying the FSC logo.

Tim Teel, Martin Guitar Director of Instrument Design said: “I was delighted to find a beautiful solid wood ebony substitute while attending the Musikmesse in 2011, which is harvested in a responsible manner under FSC.

“This discovery will aid in producing high-quality instruments that will last lifetimes. Many thanks to all those involved.”

Martin Guitar already produces a range of FSC-certified instruments although none have to date used African blackwood.

Martin Guitar’s specific plans for use of the African blackwood in products are as yet unconfirmed. However, African blackwood can be used in similar ways to which ebony is commonly used in guitar making, fingerboards and bridges, for example.

Linda Davis-Wallen, Martin Guitar Sourcing Specialist, said: “C.F.  Martin & Co. was very excited to finally discover an FSC 100% certified, legal source of supply for African blackwood fingerboard, bridge and head plate stock for use on our acoustic guitars.

“It is also exciting that this traditional tone wood is a true rosewood (Dalbergia melanoxylon) with the properties of ebony, and is also being managed in an ecologically responsible manner.

“We are quite anxious to receive our first shipment and to make plans for its use on our instruments.”

Background on Martin Guitar

Martin Guitar is committed to corporate responsibility and environmental stewardship, and to support this commitment Martin maintains FSC chain-of-custody certification FSC® C008304.

In 2009 Martin was one of the first acoustic guitar manufacturers in the industry to produce a guitar model comprised entirely of FSC-certified woods.

Particularly misleading has been the widespread suggestion that musicians could have their instruments seized on suspicion that they contain illegally harvested wood, even if those instruments were built many years ago.

Some commentators have even suggested that Michelle Obama could be arrested after giving France’s First Lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, a gift of a Gibson guitar during a recent state visit.

Peddlers of such myths fail to understand the fundamentals of the Lacey Act, most significantly the rule that in order for a prosecution to take place the buyer of wood must be aware of illegality.

For example, if Gibson can prove that they were unaware that the Madagascan rosewood they bought in 2009 was illegal in any way, they will be proved innocent.

This means that musicians will in most cases be entirely innocent: after all instrument manufacturers are rarely in the habit of sharing the finer wood purchasing details with their customers and only a fool would buy an instrument from a maker who told them that wood contained within it was illegal.

However, the above scenario is mostly hypothetical because the Lacey Act targets instrument manufacturers not individual musicians.

And in response to the hysteria whipped up in the blogosphere since the last Gibson raid on 24th August, US lawmakers recently sought to clarify this crucial distinction and put a stop to the nonsense debate.

In a letter addressed to US congresswoman, Marsha Blackburn, Republican representative for Tennessee, home of Gibson HQ, who has been leading the political assault on the Lacey Act in recent weeks, the Department of Justice and Department of the Interior sought to allay fears:

“People who unknowingly possess a musical instrument or other object containing wood that was illegally taken, possessed, transported or sold in violation of law and who, in the exercise of due care, would not have known that it was illegal, do not have criminal exposure.

“The federal government focuses its enforcement efforts on those who are removing protected species from the wild and making a profit by trafficking in them.”

The Department of Justice and Department of the Interior’s statement comes at a time when many music and wood industry representatives are starting to find their voices in support of the Lacey Act.

The Future Policy Award provides valuable international recognition of the Lacey Act as one of the world’s most inspiring and innovative forest policies.

This recognition comes at a time when the Lacey Act is under pressure from a coalition of musicians, instrument manufacturers and right-wing politicians and commentators as a result of the on-going investigation of Gibson guitars under the Lacey Act.

Neil Bridgland, Sound & Fair Campaign Manager, said: “It’s a real shame that the Lacey Act has become so politicised when it’s doing the job it was designed to do: force wood importers to a pay full attention to their supply chains and implement responsible purchasing policies.

“In the past, few manufacturers were concerned with where wood came from, how it was harvested, were the correct fees paid, just as long as the quality was OK.

“The Gibson case is a game changer for the music industry and about time too.”

Environmental Investigation Agency Executive Director, Alexander von Bismarck, described the Lacey Act as: “a landmark act that has had such an extraordinary effect on the ongoing battle against illegal logging.

“With the Lacey Act, the US is closing the door on illegal wood, and sending a huge signal that our market power will support both good governance and forest protection”.

The amended Lacey Act is the first law in the world to prohibit trade in wood products made from trees that were illegally harvested.

As a result of the international effort to curb trade in illegal logging, the practice is estimated to have decreased by over 20% worldwide.

The Lacey Act of 1900 focused on wildlife trade and has been a leading tool in efforts to control smuggling of products derived from endangered species. The 2008 amendment added plants to this law, which made it applicable to the one trillion dollar global wood products industry.

The first enforcement action under the new law occurred in 2009, when a search warrant was executed on Gibson Guitars to investigate the import of ebony and rosewood from Madagascar.

Madagascar was at the time shown to be losing up to 300 trees a day from its national parks, the last habitat for unique species of Lemurs, birds, and chameleons.

Martin Doyle has been a prominent supporter of the sustainable use of African Blackwood for a number of years. This has included the production of radio documentaries exploring the use and conservation of African Blackwood.

In 2009, in the process of making The Music Tree, Martin travelled to Tanzania where he saw first-hand the efforts being made to manage African Blackwood.

Lessons learnt in Africa have now born fruit in Ireland with the production of flutes made from wood from the same villages that Martin visited several years ago.

Martin Doyle said: “From the time I was very young, I lamented man’s destruction of nature. It has always defied my logic and hurt me to think that we were capable of flattening thousands of square miles of forestry so we could make hamburgers or bulldoze a beautiful meadow for a car park.

“When I started making flutes I was concerned as to where the timber came from: were they just hacking down the forests or were they sensitive to the continuation and replanting of the forests?

“In 2009 I was fortunate enough to be invited to Tanzania to see how the Mpingo Conservation and Development Initiative works and I could not have been happier with any system of conservation.

“Villagers cut the trees down when they are mature and another grows right out from the stump ensuring the continuation of the species in the natural forest.

“I feel that this is a great system as within it man is working in harmony with nature.

“It is a much nicer approach than dedicating a forest to one type of tree as it leaves nature to do natures work.”

Martin Doyle is now fully committed to using FSC-certified African blackwood in all future flute production and is pursuing plans to become fully FSC-certified as soon as possible.

Sound & Fair partner, Just Forests, is in the process of setting up an FSC producers group aimed specifically at Irish instrument manufacturers, and it is hoped that Martin Doyle will become a founder member of the group.

Listen to The Music Tree, featuring Martin Doyle’s visit to Tanzania

Listen to an interview on RTÉ Radio 1, with Martin Doyle talking the flutes he is making using FSC certified Blackwood

Comic Relief’s support has been fundamental to the success of the campaign to date which in the past few months has seen major musical instrument manufacturers, including Martin Guitars, place orders for FSC-certified African blackwood.

The continuation funding enables Sound & Fair to build on these exciting developments with the aims of engaging with new manufacturing partners, bringing a range of FSC-certified  instruments to market and ultimately delivering increased benefits to Tanzanian forest communities.

Over 600 woodwind students were briefed on the Sound & Fair campaign, the need for sustainable practises by instrument manufacturers and the benefits for forest communities in Tanzania.

Music colleges visited included Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, Chethams School of Music, Manchester and Purcell School for Young Musicians.

The reaction from the music colleges has been excellent.

Belinda Gough, Head of Woodwind, Chethams School of Music, said: “The presentation was wonderful. It provided our students with engaging ideas and clearer understanding of the context of the changing world we live in and that taking individual responsibility is paramount.

“It was such a treat to meet James Laizer, whose message was poignant. To think that our instruments have the potential to provide communities with the things we take for granted, such as a midwife and clean water, is something quite special.”

The FSC Outstanding Achievement Award was presented by Charles Thwaites, Executive Director of FSC-UK, and accepted on behalf of Sound & Fair by Makala Jasper, National Director of Mpingo Conservation and Development Initiative (MCDI), and James Lazier, MCDI Trustee.

The FSC Outstanding Achievement Award recognises the work carried out by Sound & Fair in establishing a Chain of Custody for FSC African blackwood and Hanson Clarinets in producing the world’s first FSC-Certified woodwind instrument.