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Nicholas Daniel
Nicholas Daniel, the internationally celebrated oboist and conductor, has called upon woodwind players to think about the wood that is used in their instruments and the impact it has on the environment and forest communities in Africa.
Nicholas Daniel said: “In the next few months the first ever crop of sustainably harvested African blackwood, certified by the internationally-renowned Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), will be available for woodwind makers to purchase and prepare to be made into instruments over the next few years.”
African blackwood, also known as Mpingo or Grenadilla, was once common throughout East Africa. It is now commercially extinct in Kenya and many areas of Tanzania, except for a small area in the south of the country.
Hard though it is to accept, the African blackwood in your oboe, English Horn or flute has almost certainly been harvested in an unsustainable way – at best.
However, there is also a significant chance that it was illegally logged and that its use in the manufacture of your woodwind instrument has contributed to the continued poverty of some of the world’s poorest people.
However, peace of mind for woodwind players is on the way in the form FSC-certified African blackwood courtesy of a campaign called Sound & Fair.
Nicholas Daniel said: “I am so excited and proud to be involved with this remarkable project, that pays for the first time a proper rate to growers in Tanzania, one of the poorest countries in the world.”
It is from Tanzania that the Sound & Fair campaign, of which Nick Daniel has recently become a Patron, aims to establish a sustainable trade in African blackwood through a chain of custody linking forest communities in Tanzania to woodwind players in the West.
The Chain of Custody starts in the Tanzanian forests with the creation of forest management schemes providing communities with ownership over the African blackwood in their area.
Harvests are carried out in a sustainable manner under FSC guidelines. The African blackwood tree needs 60-70 years to mature so a 1.5% annual harvest rate of only mature trees ensures the resource remains in perpetuity for future generations.
The communities also receive a massive income boost. The world’s first harvest of FSC-certified, 100% sustainably harvested African blackwood was carried out in Kikole village in December 2009 and the income for the village was 400 times that which they would have previously earned. That’s a 40,000% increase!
The income, which totals around £1,200 and which would have previously flowed to the government and forestry officials and companies, will be shared by the community and used for development activities such as education, health care and local business development.
£1,200 may seem like a quite a small amount of money to you and I, especially in comparison to the cost of the instruments we use, but such amounts can make a huge difference in an area where employment opportunities are few and where poverty is entrenched.
To put it into context, the average family income in Kikole is less than £1 a day and there’s no health service, secondary education or income support to call upon.
Following harvesting, the wood is stamped as originating from an FSC-certified source and crucially is kept separate at all stages of processing from non-FSC-certified wood. Annual FSC inspections ensure that full separation is being carried out thoroughly at all stages of the supply chain and the wood eventually finds it’s way to woodwind instrument manufacturers who like all other links in the chain of custody are FSC-certified.
You might be wondering what all this certification and inspection business means? Well by keeping the FSC-certified African blackwood separate at all stage, a manufacturer who joins the chain of custody, can offer you, the consumer, a 100% guarantee that the instrument you buy is from a sustainable source.
There’s also the added benefit of knowing that you’ve helped make life a little easier for some of the world’s poorest people, maybe helped send a few kids to secondary school, possibly even university and you may even have saved a life through improved basic health care.
Yes, an FSC-certified woodwind instrument is going to be a little more expensive than a non-FSC version but it will only be a small price premium, a few percentage points.
And what price can you put on the saving a species from extinction and the improving the lives of the world’s poorest people?
Nicholas Daniel said: “It is time that we look at the wood of our oboes as WOOD, as something that grew, that someone tended, owned, harvested, prepared.
“It is no longer acceptable that anyone is treated unfairly in the making of our beautiful instruments, or that someone in a country far away with few of the benefits we have suffers as a result of our search for beauty.
“We can help directly in this situation, and we can make a difference. We just need to express our commitment and enthusiasm for FSC-certified wood with our makers, and make it clear that we want a fair deal for growers in Tanzania.”
Read more at Nicholas Daniel’s website