CITES - Possible Changes Impacting Instruments

[Dirty_Boogie]

Interesting article for us in PRS land... https://www.npr.org/2019/08/27/7545...om-restrictions-on-heavily-trafficked-rosewoo

 

[bodia]

Nice! I may start looking for something to be shipped in!

 

[toothace]

That's a good thing!!

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Interesting article for us in PRS land...

I feel like this impacts fans of other brands more... kinda..

 

[László]

I feel like this impacts fans of other brands more... kinda..

Well, maybe not...if PRS can ship BRW fretboard guitars outside the US (does the new cites permit that?), and if they don’t have to hoard the good IRW and other rosewoods, like Madagascar, it’d be good for players and for PRS.

This is a good, common sense, move.

 

[sergiodeblanc]

Well, maybe not...if PRS can ship BRW fretboard guitars outside the US (does the new cites permit that?), and if they don’t have to hoard the good IRW and other rosewoods, like Madagascar, it’d be good for players and for PRS.

This is a good, common sense, move.

Agreed, which is why I said “kinda”.

 

[László]

Agreed, which is why I said “kinda”.

Yeah, I just needed to blather on a little!

 

[Dirty_Boogie]

Next thing we (the U.S. PRS fans) will start complaining that not only do the Europeans get all the cool special runs, they now get all the good rosewood as well!

 

[veinbuster]

That means all my Santanas can go to Santana Fest.

Or all the Santanas can come to my house. You know they want to.

 

[Alnus Rubra]

Hopefully this is good news for the musical instrument community as a whole.

 

[Micky!]

Finally a good news (maybe)

 

[Tonart]

About friggin time.

Once a musical instrument is fabricated it exists in the realm of end users and customers. These parties have absolutely no control over how responsibly the wood was harvested and sourced.

Furthermore end users are typically clueless about these arcane rules, and it is not reasonable to expect that laymen customers should be knowledgeable of these ever changing and esoteric laws.

We are the not the professionals here. We are able to be instinctively aware of ivory and shun it, but not a trail of import and export timber permits from here to kingdom come. Either tell me the item is banned totally, or not. Don’t tell me maybe it’s banned, depending on whether it has a string of import and export permits from every port it visited in its lifetime, provided your dealer or Reverb seller is honest or 100% geek level diligent.

Making the end user bear the CITES burden everytime we want to sell an instrument, relocate to another country, repair the instrument, for all eternity, was never a fair thing to do. It may be fair for ID-on-sight stuff like crocodile skin, but not on such a nuanced item.

The onus and burden should be on factions who have control over the responsible sourcing of wood, and who are expected to know the rules. The onus should be on the professionals.

Regulate raw timber as you deem appropriate. Leave finished instruments alone. Talk about overreach from an ivory tower. Good riddance.

 

[WA Paul]

BRW is still Appendix I. So while the relief should be available for finished musical instruments (yeah!), I don’t believe it will change for the availability of the instrument maker to gain access/import the raw material. Non Apendix I woods are removed from the restriction as I understand the proposal. But I’m not a lawyer nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express

Big win for customers, half win for purveyors of fine musical instruments

 

[László]

About friggin time.

Once a musical instrument is fabricated it exists in the realm of end users and customers. These parties have absolutely no control over how responsibly the wood was harvested and sourced.

Furthermore end users are typically clueless about these arcane rules, and it is not reasonable to expect that laymen customers should be knowledgeable of these ever changing and esoteric laws.

We are the not the professionals here. We are able to be instinctively aware of ivory and shun it, but not a trail of import and export timber permits from here to kingdom come. Either tell me the item is banned totally, or not. Don’t tell me maybe it’s banned, depending on whether it has a string of import and export permits from every port it visited in its lifetime, provided your dealer or Reverb seller is honest or 100% geek level diligent.

Making the end user bear the CITES burden everytime we want to sell an instrument, relocate to another country, repair the instrument, for all eternity, was never a fair thing to do. It may be fair for ID-on-sight stuff like crocodile skin, but not on such a nuanced item.

The onus and burden should be on factions who have control over the responsible sourcing of wood, and who are expected to know the rules. The onus should be on the professionals.

Regulate raw timber as you deem appropriate. Leave finished instruments alone. Talk about overreach from an ivory tower. Good riddance.

Plus, these regulations are like peeing in the ocean. The Brazilian rain forest is literally, deliberately, being burnt for development, and destroying insane quantities of this stuff, and the governments controlling them allow it.

Harvest the damn wood before it’s destroyed. And create long term, protected forests intended for future harvesting, controlled by companies with a vested interest in wood production, and you might see the species both saved and used in a planned way.

“Les, what do you really know about all this?”

“Not much, actually.”

 

[alantig]

Harvest the damn wood before it’s destroyed. And create long term, protected forests intended for future harvesting, controlled by companies with a vested interest in wood production, and you might see the species both saved and used in a planned way.

Isn’t that pretty much what Taylor did, partnerships no with someone to ensure that there was new and managed growth?

I get the idea of regulating some of this stuff, but i think there has to be care taken with loopholes. I agree that finished instruments are not the main culprit here, but I worry that allowing any finished instrument will result in companies trying to do end runs a la Gibson and the illegal sourcing. I strongly believe there’s a happy medium that can be struck, but ultimately, human involvement is going to gum up the works somewhere along the way.

 

[László]

Isn’t that pretty much what Taylor did, partnerships no with someone to ensure that there was new and managed growth?

I get the idea of regulating some of this stuff, but i think there has to be care taken with loopholes. I agree that finished instruments are not the main culprit here, but I worry that allowing any finished instrument will result in companies trying to do end runs a la Gibson and the illegal sourcing. I strongly believe there’s a happy medium that can be struck, but ultimately, human involvement is going to gum up the works somewhere along the way.

Yes, Taylor did that. Humanity being what it is, the best motivation for responsibly accomplishing both conservation and availability for future use isn’t regulation, since that’s clearly ineffective; it’s profit.

There, I said it. I must be a capitalist swine or something worse.

I figure if people could sell this wood for decent money, they might not set it on fire.