Important takeaways regarding CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species):
CITES and laws such as the ESA also protect endangered or threatened plant species, including trees and tree products (usually wood), from ongoing exploitation and unrestricted international trade. The most famous example of a CITES-listed tree is Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra), whose wood has been a staple of furniture manufacturing and lutherie for centuries. Brazilian rosewood has been protected from nearly all international trade of newly harvested wood as a CITES Appendix I listed species since 1992. The CITES rules regarding Brazilian rosewood and other tropical hardwoods were strengthened in 2017 to include “stump wood” and “salvaged wood.” As of 2017, all rosewoods of the genus Dalbergia other than Brazilian rosewood are protected under CITES Appendix II, so that they can be traded internationally with the appropriate CITES documentation. “Honduras” (big-leaf) mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla), probably the most commonly used wood for guitar backs and sides and many necks, can also be traded as a CITES Appendix II listed speciesalthough some luthiers limit their use of that wood to avoid the need for CITES paperwork–CITES requires an export permit for this and other Appendix II-listed species, which in some nations can take months to obtain. Brazilian rosewood remains the only CITES Appendix I-listed wood species. Other CITES-listed wood species that luthiers sometimes use include Bubinga, African mahogany, and Padauk (CITES Appendix II). Violin family bow makers typically use “pernambuco” (Paubrasilia echinata heartwood) for premium bows, and many use “brazilwood” (usually Paubrasilia echinata sapwood) a slightlyless expensive alternative that like pernambuco is listed in CITES Appendix II.
None of the animal products currently banned under CITES and national regulations are likely ever again to become available to acquire and use for lutherie or any other purpose. The primary reason for that is that threatened or endangered species remain under significant population pressure from multiple causes, and their population levels remain low. For example, African elephants, which numbered in the millions until the late 1990s, have declined to just 415,000 animals, partly because of continued intense poaching and smuggling, and partly because African elephant habitat has largely been destroyed by the exigencies of human population growth (urban development, agriculture, etc.). The likelihood of large-scale African elephant population recovery is extremely low because of the combination of low population levels, low population densities (which reduces reproductive success), an inherently low reproductive rate, continued slaughter of elephants for ivory, and the scarcity of elephant habitat. Remember also that most of the ivory used in lutherie, for jewelry, and for miscellaneousdomestic US uses, was procured when there were still millions of African elephants. The existing population remnant obviously cannot withstand for long almost any direct exploitation atop all the other impacts that it experiences. These observations and projections are of necessity science-based—no one is guessing about elephant numbers and status. Anecdotal information (“I see elephants every day, all over the place”), no matter how compelling (“I counted 500 elephants in my backyard just this morning”), is never useful in determining species status.
A frequently cited shortcoming of endangered species protective laws is that while nearly all such laws may control direct exploitation of covered species (hunting, poaching, selling, trading, smuggling, etc.), few except the federal ESA provide for protection from threatened and endangered species habitat destruction or loss, which are by far the most serious threats and impacts to all species, endangered or not. Indeed, many people may not appreciate that habitat destruction or complete loss comprise such a threat. The federal US ESA provides for habitat protection, in different ways depending on whether a project that may affect endangered species habitat concerns federal government agencies (ESA Section 7), or other entities such as state and local governments, independent stakeholders, and private landowners (ESA Section 10). Some state Endangered Species laws protect listed species habitat from certain impacts, but no state law is as comprehensive as the US ESA provides. Private property may be exempt from federal ESA habitat preservation rules, unless there is a federal nexus as noted above. So, while CITES and many Endangered Species Protection laws hardly protect habitat at all, the challenges of public and private property management and protection in the context of animal and plant protection suggest a need for newpractices, a need that regulators and lawmakers for the most part have not yet addressed. That hardly lessens the legitimacy of the current laws, treaties, and regulations that protect imperiled species from exploitation and unrestricted international trade—without those measures, many species would very likely already have gone to extinction. Species protection has indeed improved significantly since the free-for-all days of the 1950s and 1960s but preserving even a remnant of our ever-shrinking natural world will require changes in how we view the importance of that world. Unfortunately, once a species is extinct, nothing will bring it back, and the laws, regulations, and treaties are intended to keep that from happening.
