Wood 4 Good: The Art of Sustainability
Music to my Ears!
Guitars appeal to our eyes as much as our ears.
The most highly desired tone-woods are not only resonant and produce a good sound, but are also visually beautiful. (Pictured Maple Guitar from UnleavenedShred.)
Some of the most dramatic figure wood is found in North American Maple that can also be sustainably produced.
But as this blog from World Resources Institute shows, not all is clean and good in how some Maple is logged.
The wood has also gained a reputation in the Pacific Northwest as “Meth Maple,” since drug addicts will cut trees from protected forests and sell them on the black market for a quick source of cash.
Here’s the first case where DNA fingerprinting of trees was used to match illegal logging activity, which led to the prosecution of the perpetrators under the US Lacey Act.
Professor Andy Lowe of University of Adelaide tells the story of how Double Helix Tracking Technologies got involved in “The Case of the Meth Maple Guitar”.
This first appeared in The Art of Travel – Issue 7 – 29 September 2020.