The musical instrument industry is hardly resposible by itself for the devastation in the old growth forests. The relatively few Martin D-28
thru D-45s and the O,OO,and OOO relatives didn't destroy any rainforests in the third world. Gibson didn't either.

Lumber management is not so simple an accomplishment that species will be saved by not building elegant instruments in a traditional manner.
The world moratorium on not using third world hard woods has had the opposite effect. By devaluing the trees in such a way more mature and immature accerage has been cut up and burnt for agriculture in the last ten years than was ever cut for guitars and banjos in the last 100. Some of the land has been used for a more cost effective crop than trees. That being drug production.

Once again we are doing things stupidly on the back end because we were just as stupid on the from end.

I have this info from three prospectives. A missionary Uncle in Colombia. A nephew newsman in Cambodia,and a brother in the sustainable lumber industry.

In my mind there is nothing wrong with the Green Guitar idea at all. We should have done this from the start. Just don't allow your selve to think we are saving the ecology of the third world one guitar at a time.

We may be condeming the rain forests, old growth redwoods, and Adirondack soft woods to extinction because we begin from a postion of over use and waste in ALL aspects of industry. And then we over react when we realize how dumb and wasteful we are.

Don