Guitar makers sing the blues as rosewood rules hurt
▶ Companies lament impact of attempt to stop smuggling to Chinese furniture manufacturers
An international crackdown on illegal logging has ensnared the makers of some guitars and other musical instruments, whose top-end products require small amounts of rosewood, prized for its rich, multicoloured grain and resonant sound.
Since new trade rules took effect in 2017, guitar makers have complained about long delays in getting permits to import rosewood and export finished instruments that contain it. Warehouses have filled with unsold instruments, and a bagpipe maker in New Hampshire went so far as to ask the governor to intervene after a permit application was lost.
“I’m so annoyed. I’m so distraught by this,” says Chris Martin, chairman and chief executive of CF Martin and Co, which uses rosewood in 200 models of acoustic guitar, some played by stars such as Eric Clapton, Ed Sheeran, Sting and others. The company’s logistics staff estimates it spends 40 per cent of its time dealing with the new regulations. Fearful that Africa and Asia were losing rosewood forests, governments adopted the rules to stem the flow of smuggled rosewood to China’s luxury furniture makers. But the restrictions have also hurt companies that use relatively tiny amounts of the wood in guitars, clarinets and oboes. Months after the regulations were adopted, acoustic guitar exports from the US fell by about 28 per cent, and electric guitar exports declined 23 per cent, according to the
Music Trades magazine. Music retailers reported losing $60 million. At Mr Martin’s Pennsylvania-based company, many transactions are stalled.
“We have orders for the guitars. We have customers.
“The customers have the money to pay for them, and we can’t ship them because the paperwork is stuck somewhere,” he says. The guitar industry’s frustration is focused on the United Nation’s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or Cites, which is responsible for combating wildlife smuggling. The agency has tangled in the past with instrument makers, mostly over restrictions on ivory, tortoiseshell and whale bone.
Agency officials previously placed trade limits on only a few rosewood species, such as Brazilian rosewood, which is especially precious. But the 2016 trade rules covered up to 300 species of the rosewood family known as Dalbergia.
The new regulations also required permits for products made from the wood, including guitars, violins, bagpipes and xylophones. Many companies that had never needed permits had only three months to comply. “It was a steep learning curve for these companies,” says Timothy Van Norman, chief of the permit-granting branch of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which saw its permit applications double to 40,000 in 2017 mostly from rosewood. The cost and hassle of the new regulations have caused some guitar makers to shift away from rosewood.
Martin stopped using it on most guitars produced in Mexico and the models made in the US that cost less than $3,000.
Taylor has rolled out several models without rosewood for overseas customers.
But the companies have no plans to abandon rosewood altogether.
But guitar builders and players know there is “something very special” about rosewood’s depth and richness of sound.
“No one has found ... a wood that works better,” Mr Martin says.
The customers have the money to pay for them, and we can’t ship them because the paperwork is stuck somewhere CHRIS MARTIN Chairman and CEO, Martin and Co