Green Guitars: Rock On For Sustainable Forestry

Music Wood helps preserve the tonewoods and sustainable forestry It’s been called a paradox, the idea that musicians are collectively a group that tends toward environmental awareness, concern and consciousness – all while strumming guitars, bowing violins, or picking bass made of old-growth woods to achieve the magical tone they seek. The traditional tonewoods include Sitka Spruce, Brazilian Rosewood, Ebony, Mahogany. and Maple. These woods come from boreal, temperate, and tropical forests from all over the world, and often are harvested using unsustainable forestry practices.

Music Wood is a campaign developed by Greenpeace, in partnership with instrument makers Martin, Gibson, Fender, Taylor, and Yamaha to help protect threatened forest habitat and promote sustainable forestry. The goal of the project is to make available more instruments made with wood harvested within the exacting management standards set forth by the Forestry Stewardship Council.

Much of the wood used for sound boards in pianos and guitars comes from Alaskan Sitka Spruce harvested by Sealaska. For phase one of the Music Wood campaign, Sealaska has agreed to a preliminary audit of their forestry practices.

If all goes according to plan a full assessment will be conducted this summer by third party sources accredited by the FSC, giving Sealaska the opportunity to implement the recommendations of the assessment and apply for full FSC accreditation. Such an endorsement will insure that Sealaska adopts and maintains a sustainable forestry policy, saving the old-growth forest, hopefully, for generations to come.

Without such a policy and practice in place, Sealaska’s own audit estimates that at current harvest levels old-growth forests in Alaska will be gone within fifteen years.

Instrument making is not a huge market for these old-growth forests, but it is a high profile one that can send a powerful message and help lead the way toward sustainable management of our old-growth forests.

And that should be music to everyone’s ears.

Sources and Further Reading:
Music Wood (as explained by guitar player Laurence Juber)
The Forestry Stewardship Council
Reuters Environmental News