Almost all wood sourcing for acoustic guitars involves some combination of:
- environmental destruction (to fell the wood)
- government corruption (to export the wood)
- international crime (to sell the wood to domestic wholesalers)
The ethical choice of woods is a very complicated topic. This is my brief take on it as a way in.
I think there’s a place for a long, fully-detailed exposition about why most woods used on most guitars are ethically questionable, at the very least. There are endless exposés about the violent gangs stealing old-growth wood from ancient rain forests, about decades of governmental corruption involved in felling and export licenses, and about the role that all this timber plays in the economies of international crime. I think it’s great to learn as much as possible about these particularities. But I don’t think it’s necessary. The basic truth is short and simple. (See above.)
A lot of wood involves all three wrongs. Is it a tropical wood? Then that’s most likely the category you’re in. Honduran rosewood? Guatemalan mahogany? Essentially any wood from Africa: African blackwood, ebony, sapele, sipo,? Cocobolo, ziricote, Malaysian blackwood, Madagascar rosewood? You’re getting a three-for-one there. You’re spending your money to send a strong market signal that it’s ok to destroy forests essential for our survival as a species and then pay off government officials to sidestep the almost useless international regulations we have in place to prevent this and then put money in the pockets of international crime organizations to deliver the stuff to a wholesaler who can then “ignorantly” sell that wood with all the right certificates. This is an open secret throughout the industry.
Except, I think that’s a big part of the problem. Everyone in the supply chain knows. But the customers are kept in the dark. It’s a lot like the meat industry. How many of us would happily chow down on a burger if we first had to watch even five minutes of film footage showing the process that led to our meal? Kind of ruins your appetite, no?
I think the issue is relatively simple, truth be told. Almost all guitar woods support three forms of moral injustice. Involvement in just one of them would put me off their use. I don’t need fancy arguments or mountains of proof; my basic moral intuition is more than enough.
So, what to do? For me the answer is threefold. One, very carefully source every wood that comes into the shop. If I can’t figure out where it came from, then I likely don’t want to know. Two, avoid the use of almost all tropical woods, because of reason number one. With a couple notable exceptions such as ebony from Crelicam or Indian rosewood that come through the export regime of the Indian government itself, you’ll never really know what you’re getting. Three, use domestic woods that you think have the least environmental impact possible.