Greenpeace: Music Wood Coalition
MusicWood is a Greenpeace initiative designed to generate market incentives to transition logging companies in the Coastal Temperate Rainforest of Southeast Alaska toward FSC certification. The FSC is the only forest certification system supported by environmental groups such as Greenpeace. Among the commercially valuable tree species found in this forest is Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) commonly used for acoustic guitar and piano soundboard. Instrument manufacturers Fender, Gibson, Martin, Taylor and Yamaha have been actively involved.
The initiative originated from the work left over from Greenpeace's highly successful Great Bear Rainforest campaign in the Coastal Temperate Rainforest just south of the Alaskan panhandle down the coast in British Colombia, Canada. Scott Paul who runs the campaign, described how the project started: "Greenpeace has had great success stopping forest destruction by analyzing the chain-of-custody - from the stump to the store shelf - and generating demand for reform in the marketplace. No one wants to buy destruction. In short, we followed the wood out of Southeast Alaska and found musical instrument manufacturers who were more than happy to work with toward greater sustainability of the resource."
For the technical guitar lovers out there, it should also be noted that 50% of the reason for the use of certain species (such as Sitka Spruce) is because of tonal qualities, and how the wood sounds (such as resonance), with the remaining 50% being based purely on tradition. As you will read in magazines and product reviews, a guitar can be judged and critiqued over which species of wood used or not used, and although it is not necessarily worse or better, it is the consumer who will decide to go with tradition (what they have always known as the good sound) or something new.
