News & Blogs
12/13/2016
Building a Sustainable Guitar: Mahogany
Type:
Blog Post
A guitar is useless unless it plays perfectly. Even the most beautiful woods can’t make up for poor construction, and the materials chosen ultimately have to serve a practical use. One of the most important parts of the guitar is the neck, which has to stay absolutely stable over years.
12/13/2016
Building A Sustainable Guitar: Sitka Spruce
Type:
Blog Post
Each fine guitar requires several rare tonewoods from around the world, representing the highest grade of the top 1 percent of all commercially available wood, a niche product with a small supply, large demand and high sales: $1.2 billion in U.S. domestic retail sales in 2014 alone.
12/13/2016
Building a Sustainable Guitar: Ebony
Type:
Blog Post
The wood underneath a guitar’s strings is called the fretboard. To function properly, it has to be perfectly constructed from wood that is hard, dense and warp-resistant. It must hold metal frets for years without any movement, since even a microscopic amount of fret movement can throw a guitar out of tune. One material is synonymous with fine fretboards: ebony.
12/13/2016
PODCAST: The Sounds of Sustainability
Type:
Blog Post
In this episode of the WRI Podcast, Lawrence MacDonald sits down with Chip Barber and Austin Clowes of the Forest Legality Initiative to talk about their work on sustainability in the guitar industry.
12/05/2016
Japan’s New Legal Timber Law
Type:
Blog Post
In May 2016, Japan adopted a new piece of legislation, called the “Law Concerning the Promotion of Distribution and Use of Legally-Harvested Timber, etc.” This law takes a different approach from other demand-side regulations for illegal timber imports, such as the U.S. Lacey Act, the EU Timber Regulation and Australian Illegal Logging Prohibition Act, in the sense that it is designed to promote the trade of legal timber, rather than attempting to eliminate illegal timber on the market.
12/02/2016
With Forest Legality Initiative, WRI enters a new phase in the fight to end illegal logging
Type:
Blog Post
Since 2010, WRI’s Forest Legality Alliance (FLA) has been at the forefront of efforts to combat illegal logging and associated trade. Together with co-founders the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), as well as over 100 partner organizations from governments, civil society, and the private sector, FLA has been a prime convener and technical resource on this crucial issue.
11/23/2016
BVRio Launches Responsible Timber Exchange
Type:
News
Today BVRio Environmental Exchange launched the Responsible Timber Exchange, a trading platform seeking to assist traders and buyers of timber exercise due diligence through an integrated risk assessment system.
06/17/2016
New Forest Trends data shows expansion in enforcement of timber legality regulations
Type:
News
A recent survey by the research institute Forest Trends has provided the first systematic and publicly available assessment of the scale and type of enforcement activities under the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) and the Australian Illegal Logging Prohibition Act and Regulation.
05/26/2016
5 Technologies Help Thwart Illegal Logging by Tracing Wood’s Origin
Type:
Blog Post
The illegal timber trade creates problems for everyone. Governments lose valuable revenue and natural resources. So governments and businesses are starting to do more to improve timber traceability, including adopting new and existing technologies that can help track timber, manage information, and eventually, help combat illegal logging.
04/26/2016
IWPA Launches National Due Care Training Program for Wood Trade Professionals
Type:
News
On the heels of Lumber Liquidator’s $13.5 million settlement with the Department of Justice on Customs Law and Lacey Act violations, the International Wood Products Association (IWPA) has launched a nationwide due care training program for wood trade professionals to help them establish standard operating procedures to comply with the Lacey Act.