Manufacturers of guitars in the queue to receive state licenses, shipping the replacement rosewood parts in their musical instruments, with other grades of wood after the UN slapped stringent restrictions on world trade rosewood – aiming to protect tropical forests.
Christian rose — new international restrictions in world trade of valuable timber threaten to cripple global manufacturing of musical instruments, primarily guitars. This comes as the international community has taken steps to curb illegal logging in ancient rainforests, as a result of interruptions in the supply of rosewood and rosewood-containing products.
New trade rules came into force last year and began to affect production lines worldwide from our Assembly lines in the U.S. and Canada for production in the Far East, from China to Indonesia.
The new rules require companies shipping rosewood and rosewood-containing products obtain special state licenses that some countries take several months to make as a government are committed to ensuring that rosewood does not come from illegal logging.
“Every country is suddenly responsible for interpreting what this new rule means,” says Scott Paul from California-based Taylor guitars.
The new rules fall under the UN Convention on international trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora (CITES), and include up to 300 species of rosewood, including the most rare Brazilian rosewood.
As a result, storage of the whole of South-East Asia is filled with unshipped and unsold raw materials for production capacities in North America as a finished product, or guitar made in the far East.
“I’m so upset. I’m so upset about it,” said Chris Martin, Chairman and chief Executive officer solid acoustic guitar manufacturer C. F. Martin and Co.
Martin uses a rosewood 200 acoustic models. While the electric guitar rosewood fingerboard only require as material, acoustic guitar sometimes requires the production of rare wood for the other parts of the document.
Over the past few decades, most of the guitar brands, including the flagship industry Gibson and fender used rosewood as main material for the guitar fretboard. Used in conjunction with maple to rosewood the fretboard is recognized as to give the instrument a warmer sound, which determined the style of play generations of guitarists.
Oddly enough, the panic in the global market of guitar caused by the misuse of rosewood from a completely different industry, not related to popular music. The governments of the countries of tropical Africa and South-East Asia took measures to protect its forests in response to huge volumes of rosewood supplied by Chinese manufacturers of furniture in China in recent years.
China has experienced a massive construction boom in the real estate market in 2015, and the demand for furniture has increased dramatically.
Meanwhile, after the rosewood limits apply, acoustic guitar US exports fell by 28%, while exports of electrical equipment fell by 23 percent, according to estimates by the musical professions. Music dealers document reported a net loss of $ 60 million.
“It was a steep learning Curve for these companies,” said Timothy van Norman, USA service fish and wildlife. “For them, it probably was unexpected.”
According to the service’s fish and wildlife, the number of rosewood apps allow nearly half, to only 40,000 last year and is expected to increase this year.
In addition, industry experts say that the price of rosewood, containing guitars and other guitars as well, with more expected this year — a huge amount of tools ready to be played absorbs moisture and collects dust in places of temporary storage in Indonesia and China.
Illegal rosewood logging is controlled by organized crime in the poorest countries in tropical latitudes. According to rough estimates, the United Nations, between 2005 and 2014, about 10,000 tons of wood were confiscated from smugglers rosewood is rosewood as the imports of China grew by 2000% over the same period.
This adds to the growing threat of a global disruption of trade, customs tariffs, but it is rather a textbook example of non-tariff restrictions on trade.
However, some guitar manufacturers to quickly come up with their own solutions. Wing — along with its far Eastern subsidiaries Squir — replaced the rosewood with PAO ferro fretboard as main material in their line 2018 of electric guitars, including the famous Stratocaster. Some North American manufacturers plan to increase production guitars with maple fretboard.
Recent events have also a pleasant surprise for a small and less well-known guitar manufacturers who are not able to afford the cost of rosewood, knowing that they will not be able to pass these costs on to their customers.
Canadian guitar manufacturer Godin guitars reaffirmed its long-standing commitment to the canadian wild cherry rosewood as a worthy replacement in their acoustic guitars, while relying on rock maple as the primary neck material electrician.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
