You always seem to find a way to pull me in and the truth of the matter is, we will be the only lonely two that would have racket at hand, hitting the ball from one court to the next. We are not ever going to solve this and we will be going around in circles to only arrive to the same issue(s) you posted.
As far as species being endemic to a specific country and if certain species grown in other countries, then there should be another category implemented that would list it in documents or in a receipt that “African Blackwood (dalbergia melanoxylon)/Hawaiian grown”. You have then to prove with time and date stamp photo’s of where it was standing (with coordinates), photo of the milled stock (with measuring tape), how much it would yield in sub-category of component parts, etc. This is kind of the way they treat those CITES restricted material in order to get passports and permits, like what luthiers go through “before” they triangulate a billet into component parts or approximate what the yield is. This just adds time, energy, raise the cost of material (raw & finished goods) and those having jurisdictions, just get to pad their pockets. It just gets ridiculous. But, since this is not endemic to Hawaii, it should be allowed for import and export (again you have to prove it with documents and photo’s).
The same with genuine mahogany that is not endemic to central and South American countries that grow them (there is not one country that this swietenia mac. is endemic to, not unless you go back in time where Belize/British Honduras was the largest supplier for trade). Take Fiji mahogany for instance- that is genuine mahogany, but not endemic to Fiji. An Australian vendor showed me containers of these woods for guitar building, he told me he is allowed to import it and export it because this is not endemic to Fiji. So he has it marketed as “Fiji Mahogany”. He has paperwork and he has photo’s of the wood and a trail of photo’s when the Fijians were loading these slabs into a container to head to AU. No one will mistaken these for old growth material because they have wide growth rings and they have tiny knots.
Tracing the tree from it’s origin, into log form, into milled lumber, to the vendor/country that it was imported to, to the buyer, to the buyer that re-sold the wood (in many sizes after processing), then to the next steward(s), etc.- the chain of custody would be next to impossible to keep it in line and organized. Some folks also barter- how do you handle that with chain of custody? Good luck with all of that.
Most exotic woods coming to us now from all those countries are most likely have not followed the legal route. Check most on-line vendors and they will have new arrivals of exotic materials. There are restricted species there and they don’t mention anything that the wood was “legally procured and obtained”. I see a well known and reputable vendor that has green genuine rosewood that was harvested last year (they own up that this was harvested in 2023). Ask yourself how were they able to import this from another continent into the US when it is CITES II protected from 2017? They list it and they have a disclaimer that this “can only be shipped to US address only”.
That new EU regulations deforestation being pushed for 2025 and now being pushed back for 2026 will have great impact on timber importations. It will not just have financial ramification to the Euro community, but a “domino effect” globally and especially to a great deal of suppliers in the US on maple, alder, ash, etc. that builders in Europe depends on us for guitar building. There will be a major backlash and I doubt it would be implemented because it will greatly affect a large deal of commerce in different trades globally. We will see a rise in cost on raw and especially finished goods.
