Brazilian Rosewood

[Bob Connor]

Very interesting post from Chuck Erikson over at the Official Luthiers Forum regarding the status of Brazilian Rosewood.

http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/view ... %23p575307

Regards

[Nick]

Finally Americans face the same problem the rest of us have had to face for years! I could never understand how it could never be shipped offshore without paperwork yet could cross land borders without restriction.
It does raise an interesting point about all those BRW instruments currently circulating without paperwork and then how do you prove it was sourced before it became illegal? Their law makers just opened a whole new can of worms there!

[jeffhigh]

There will probably be exemptions if it is used as a gunstock.

[Kamusur]

There will probably be exemptions if it is used as a gunstock.

Sad but probably true Jeff.

Steve

[peter.coombe]

Yes I saw that. Looks like the same rules that apply to Ivory will be applied to BRW. To me it is an admittance that enforcement at the US border has been and is still ineffective. At least here in Australia we like to believe that Aussie Customs are doing their job! What it effectively is going to do is to make all undocumented BRW worthless, while documented BRW will become even more valuable. It is unlikely to save one single BRW tree but will cause a whole heap of problems to innocent people.

Peter

[demonx]

Don't take any faith in Australian Customs.

A car I imported a few years ago had three dead rats and the underneath of the car had dozens of wasp nests.

Apparently Aussie customs only does random inspections.

[Jeremy D]

It has been said that less than 1 in 1000 containers even get opened.

[Kim]

If you consider the volumes, especially since off-shore on-line shopping became so popular, I reckon the Aussie Customs crew and AQIS are doing a class job with their numbers verses abbot and Co's penny pinching ways. For that alone they deserve a pat on the back for carrying on without grizzling under such adversity.

Remember your fiber to the home NBN?

How about NDIS?...etc, etc, etc..

abbottsbbPcard.jpg (50.2 KiB) Viewed 16682 times

Cheers

Kim

[peter.coombe]

Dead rats, wasps etc are the responsibility of AQIS, not Customs. CITES enforcement I believe is Customs' responsibility.

Looks like I may have been misunderstood. I also don't have a lot of faith that Aussie Customs are catching each and every illegal import, but there are not many of us who would be willing to risk importing BRW into Australia with no import permit and no CITES documentation. In fact I suspect the actual illegal imports of BRW would be miniscule and not worth the trouble of implementing the sort of crazy thing they are doing in the USA. Without an army of police how could you possibly police sales of old pianos or guitars less than 100yo that contain CITES Appendix 1 species? What about furniture, trophies, nick knacks etc etc, the list goes on and on. All now worthless because there is no paper trail and the original owners are more than likely dead. The rules state there can be no change of ownership in order to be legal! All that and not one single Elephant or BRW tree is likely to be saved.

[Nick]

All that and not one single Elephant or BRW tree is likely to be saved.

Sums it all up in one brief sentence there Peter & that's the sad part, Elephants will still be poached and BRW still felled by the unscrupulous.

[Allen]

And here's me with a massive Campaign chest that stands 5 feet tall made from solid BRW. I guess it's safe in it's current spot holding the table cloths and napkins and god knows what else the better half has stored away in there.

I had half a mind of sawing it up one day.

[56nortondomy]

And here's me with a massive Campaign chest that stands 5 feet tall made from solid BRW. I guess it's safe in it's current spot holding the table cloths and napkins and god knows what else the better half has stored away in there.

I had half a mind of sawing it up one day.

Watch out woodrat dosen't get to it first Allen.
Wayne

[woodrat]

And here's me with a massive Campaign chest that stands 5 feet tall made from solid BRW. I guess it's safe in it's current spot holding the table cloths and napkins and god knows what else the better half has stored away in there.

I had half a mind of sawing it up one day.

What a novel idea....me thinks I might have a look round for something like that! Thanks Allen!

[woodrat]

And here's me with a massive Campaign chest that stands 5 feet tall made from solid BRW. I guess it's safe in it's current spot holding the table cloths and napkins and god knows what else the better half has stored away in there.

I had half a mind of sawing it up one day.

Watch out woodrat dosen't get to it first Allen.
Wayne

Who? ... Me?

[needsmorecowbel]

I was having a conversation with a family friend who plays guitar and he said he heard through the grapevine of some guy called John in NSW who made really nice guitars. He said his last name started with B but he had a really odd nickname and it was on the tip of his tongue.

Turned out it was the "woodrat"



Allen, if you see any shady silhouettes at night holding handsaws, better watch out

[slowlearner]

The other point worth making is, who actually knows what BRW looks like beyond a small group of experts and enthusiasts. Without cutting/sanding the timber, it's pretty difficult to prove conclusively. All manner of other woods could be mistaken for BRW. Alternatively, BRW could be passed off as IRW for the sake of imports and paperwork.

Like you're all saying, it's not going to stop any trees from being felled.

[charangohabsburg]

Without cutting/sanding the timber, it's pretty difficult to prove conclusively.

Fluorescence tests get used to distinguish Dalbergia nigra form other dalbergias. A bare spot of wood is all what is needed to perform this kind of test.

Here's an interesting paper about that topic:
Separation of Dalbergia nigra from Dalbergia spruceana, Miller, Regis B.; Wiemann, Michael C., U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory, 2006

Like you're all saying, it's not going to stop any trees from being felled.

I didn't understand that someone said it would not stop any trees from being felled. I am pretty sure that actions of restriction and prohibition slow down reckless logging even if they never will completely stop illegal logging of those trees.

Did you know Dalbergia nigra is "only" listed as "Vulnerable" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species opposed to all the tree species listed as "Endangered", of which not a single one is in the CITES I category? I am not 100% sure, but this fact may well be a consequence of CITES protection.

For an overview, here you can download my list of "Scientific and Popular Names of Woods" (five languages + botanic names in Latin), where the levels of endangerment is highlighted in colours (Lower Risk least concern - Lower Risk near threatened - Vulnerable - Endagered - Critically Endagered).
FWIW, my list in .ods format (OpenOffice) is nicer to look at than in .xls format, so don't shy back scrolling down when opening the .xls sheet if you don't have OpenOffice installed.