Philipp wrote:plus you should check if the timber comes from sustainably managed forests. This is definitely always the case in Europe, but can be a problem when purchasing exotic woods. Dalbergia melanoxylon (african blackwood) is highly threatened in its original areal and its hard to reestablish. There are efforts made to regulate the production, e.g. founding plantations and stopping the logging in primary forests, but due to the high demand (coming mostly from woodwind instrument production) there's a lot of illegal logging. Maybe you should go for FSC-certified wood or get it from somewhere in the EU. Boxwood is a very good alternative for example and also laburnum or cherry. There is also new technology like thermal treatment that may provide suitable material for instrument production, making wood much harder. Time will tell if that is an option.
Cheers,
Philipp
To the best of my knowledge there is no FSC-certified wood available that I'd consider an A-grade woodwind instrument tonewood. (Boxwood isn't FSC certified either). There may, however, be a small quantitiy of FSC-certified African Blackwood on the market in the (near?) future. But for now, this is not a particularly viable option unless you don't mind plastic-impregnated bores and tonal compromises. It does of course make sense for customers and makers to know where their wood comes from, and make informed decisions about species and suppliers.
ABW is not one of the more threatened woods in this market, it is not listed by IUCN as endangered, because it is common as a shrub plant. The things that are scarce are mature trees. With ABW there is certainly a thriving black/"gray" market, and I think it would be prudent to be careful about suppliers.
Also bear in mind that logging for the timber industry is not the primary threat to most of these species and forests - it's clearing for argiculture, such as soya and palm oil, and for creating charcoal for use as heating fuel and for gold extraction. Only a few species are actually threatened by selective logging - read the IUCN species reports/data to find out which ones. (A notable exception would be Brazilian Rosewood, which is now CITES Appendix I listed as a consequence of logging pressure, particularly for the string instrument trade). By contrast, you could argue that for the woods which are currently being clear-cut for agriculture, charcoal, etc., the tonewood market can actually help promote species preservation.
I agree of course that better protections for these trees and for sustainable agriculture is important, but at the moment economic pressures are not in favor of farming slow-growing exotics - where they are farmed, they tend to be intensively grown to allow quick harvests and maximum yield, which usually produces less suitable timber for our purposes. I currently use some large pieces of farmed rosewood (marketed as "sonokeling", but the same species as "Indian" rosewood, d. latifolia), for mainstocks, and it's nice for stocks, even hollow ones, but I am not sure I would trust it for chanters, drones, or regulators, as it appears to have been grown too quickly and thus lacks the tight grain and density one wants. Smaller sizes of "sonokeling" in particular can be pretty ghastly in quality.
Another option for those who want to avoid issues of logging exotics altogether is reclaimed wood; reclaimed ebony and rosewood are scarce but can probably be obtained with patience and determination. This is a nice option for folks who want a mahogany bellows but have reservations about the mahogany trade (another genus where selective logging pressure is a major factor - I don't normally make mahogany bellows for this reason, but I do have a small amount of reclaimed mahogany); reclaimed mahogany is somewhat easier to come by.
best regards
Bill
