Effect of CITES ban on wood crossing national borders? Implications for knifemaking?

M

milkbaby

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I read this the other day: http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/rosewoods-bubinga-really-banned-cites/ and the actual CITES appendices: https://cites.org/eng/app/appendices.php

CITES now has ALL Dalbergia species restricted from crossing national borders, this means all the rosewoods, tulipwood, kingwood, cocobolo, and African blackwood. They also included bubinga (3 Guibourtia species) in the new restrictions. There are exceptions for non-commercial items with a max weight of 10 kilograms and "parts and derivatives" originating and exported from Mexico (but logs, sawn wood, veneer, and plywood are restricted).

So, just how much rosewoods and other restricted woods are already in the USA just sitting around drying or already dried? I'm in the USA, apologies for being Ameri-centric... :) Should we all start stockpiling all the woods we love?

And if you make a knaf wit rosewood handle, I guess it has to be a "gift" to be sent to somebody outside your country... except Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra) which is totally off limits for border crossing.

One of the common factory wa handles in Japanese kitchen cutlery is rosewood, I wonder how this affects them?

Apologies if this was discussed already... I'm just bummed
 
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Just want to thank you for the links- this is pretty interesting, since it affects some of my most used materials. This is a much bigger issue for me than ivory bans.
 
It certainly effects supply. I used be able to buy decent cocobolo for 40 dollars a board foot. Now, if you want the good, old Mexican material you are expecting to pay in the range of 60+ a board foot.

Yes, there is cheaper coco, but the good material has been getting a lot more expensive
 
Thanks for posting this M. This is a bit sad, but might have some interesting affects on knife sales.
This pretty much eliminates cross national sales of these woods. Which means what is in the U.S. stays in the U.S. with some minor exceptions. Prices of existing inventories seem likely to spike.

I really like using the African blackwood but there are alternatives. Time to start exploring more domestic woods that aren't listed.
 
Thanks for posting this link - scary! China is effecting us in more ways than I ever imagined. On the note that 85% of timber was illegal logging in Guatemala, that's perhaps correct. Not sure now, but in '91-'92 when I lived in Guatemala the logging restrictions were so "strict", you could hardly cut a tree on your own property without a permit, which cost a good bit in fees and (at the time) bribes. As a result, it was usually cheaper to cut illegally, then pay the bribe "if" you got caught. There is such a thing as making too much illegal that you actually make things worse.

Ken H>
 
Ken H> said:
There is such a thing as making too much illegal that you actually make things worse.
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SO MUCH THIS!! Banning stuff is seldom the answer. Whether ivory, rosewoods, or whatever, I have very little faith in a government solution. All I expect is more restrictions and more red tape here, instead of dealing with the problem at the source. What are the Guatemalans, Mexicans, African nations doing to save their own trees and elephants?
 
The jump in price has been driven buy many sources. In the US the rise of home craftsmen "people like us, wood workers and home guitar makers" but the real demand is coming from China. Historically, rosewood is a status item in China. There are actually a few rosewoods native to China, or at least there were until the Chinese cut them all down to the last. Them they raided thailand, Laos and Vietnam, driving Thai rosewood all but extinct "the last rosewood tree in thailand is guarded by 12 solders"

Then they began to pillage Madagascar, killing anyone who spoke out and funding the timber barons. On the island, you can technically only sell wood knocked over by storms. The thing is, a storm powerful enough to knock down a rosewood tree would barely leave an island behind. So after every gust of wind the timber barons sell all their stock pile and kill or threaten anyone who says anything.

And now they are in central America, cutting down the cocobolo, the hondourus rosewood and the remaining kingwood.

The real reason for CITIES listing it is to allow international oversight. Guatemala, Nicaragua and Belize are small, rather poor countries. They can't fight the huge money Chinese buyers are willing to pay a poor farmer to steal rosewood. By cities listing it, American, Canadian and European observers and enforcers can claim jurisdiction and help fight this so that what happened in South East Asia doesn't happen in Central America.
 
It does not take much imagination to forecast the future of natural materials.

If products from extinct animals can be made illegal, anything can be made illegal.

Chuck
 
Prices on these woods have gone to $100-$200/bf in Canada. I made a thread about it a while back to warn people if their suppliers hadn't jacked the prices already.
 
I firmly believe that woods will never be under the same level of ban and control that ivory is for a simple reason.

People dont care enough. With Ivory, you have dead elephants. That is a powerful tool of public outrage. People remember going to the zoo and seeing elephants, or videos of baby elephants playing. Wood simply doesnt have the same emotional connection, and so there isnt the same drive. People care about things that are cute. Thats why endangered pandas get billions and billions of dollars donated towards saving them, but a rare lizard in the congo gets no money, because its not as cute.
 
Cocobolo has definitely been going up in price, glad I stocked up on it a couple years back. Going to get more soon next time im at my "source" for it as they still are selling off a huge surpluses of premium cocobolo in the $30 per bf range. The good blood red and loaded with black. I see cocobolo getting to desert ironwood pricing within a few more years. Maybe even ebony.

Rosewoods ive yet to see much of an increase, so many species from all over, and tons of it already stateside going to be a while i think before it gets moving up too much in price. Just last week I scored 6 board feet of fret board honduran rosewood for $40 flat. Flawless stuff too.

Kingwood im definitely noticing big spikes, wanted to pick some up and it had gone up at least 30% in price from last year.

Bubinga is really going nuts, used to be a fairly cheap exotic, now waterfall figured slabs can run up to $10,000 for dining/conference table sizes.

As for african blackwood, dont even stress it guys, that is pretty much the only exotic species to not worry about. Its being sustainably farmed in pretty large quantities in Africa now. Even a few spots in Florida. Growers saw writing on the wall with that one due to its high demand in woodwinds and started commercially growing it decades ago. Its price will go up more and more, but it will always be available here in usa as the certified sustainable can still be imported and or is growing here.
 
Mammoths are not elephants. People do not visualize baby mammoths playing. Mammoths are extinct, and their products are now illegal in some states. Twenty years ago no one could imagine this happening. Now it is progressing like cancer.

Blackwood will not be a problem until a politician says they cannot tell the difference between blackwood and ebony.

Never underestimate the stupidity of people. You cannot make anything idiot proof. Mother nature will always make a better idiot.

Chuck
 
With the mammoth/elephant issue, I think the unjustified thinking is that elephant will be passed off as mammoth, to try to game the system.

I do agree out "exotic" wood days are becoming more limited. We'll be seeing more dyed/stained/cast domestic woods, and synthetics. There is a shift in customer perception. I've done more synthetic handles this last thee months than I've done since I started making knives. (Four years.)

Anything too slow growing to be farmed easily will price itself in the ivory range in the next decade or two. Poplar and maple curl will be dyed to give us a Koa like appearance when Koa supply depletes.
 
Thomas Carey said:
Why in the hell are they doing this? Anyone know?
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5d013d9ac2ab2258c7954f8b24f648c8.jpg
 
Thomas Carey said:
Why in the hell are they doing this? Anyone know?
Click to expand...

Please read my post a little earlier in the thread. It allows wealthier nations like the U.S and Europe to protect endangered rosewood species in latin America to prevent the Chinese buyers from doing what they have done in South east asia and Africa. That is to say cutting down every single rosewood tree till the species is dead and gone.
 
A while back, I was thinking about how much "cheaper" some ironwood appeared to be compared to say 7 or 8 years ago. It turns out that it is not cheaper. Everything else just has gotten crazy expensive, so ironwood does not really sell at the premium that it used to. I saw the same thing happened to the price of sambar stag. Not too long ago, like 2008-2010, you could dig around in the bins at the nice Indian couple's booth at Blade and find top grade stuff that needed cleaning up for like $35 for a bowie sized carver. A couple of years later, your only option was stuff that had been polished up and was selling for $75-90 for the same primo pieces.
 
I became sensitized to Rosewoods some 15 years ago and haven't used it since.

Dyed & stabilized Maple, Ash, Buckeye etc works & looks great! Gentleman, this kind of stuff will only get worst with time!

Too many people on the planet after slow growing Woods!
 
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