Regarding African Blackwood changes on CITES Jan 2nd, 2017

[p51baby]

So I'm cross posting this from the Session what I wrote after spending a night going through documents. I'm sure you makers can chime in a bit more, but I don't want any blackwood flute players being caught unaware about the changes in the new year to global travel/trade in African Blackwood/grenadilla instruments. Please feel free to add and/or correct me.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I’m hoping this might make things easier for us Blackwood flute and instrument players. So after much panicking on Facebook last night as I have an upcoming overseas trip in which I wanted to take my Martin Doyle Blackwood flute overseas, I though I should make a post for others to navigate all the confusion out there.

So the same regulatory body that monitors and bans the trade in wildlife parts and fauna will be listing African Blackwood and other woods of the same family in Appendix II of the CITES amendment. And while not made illegal, it will restrict and regulate the trade of the wood starting January 2nd, 2017. So what does this mean for us instrument players with new and old flutes trying to buy/sell/travel with our instruments? I scoured the Federal Wildlife Services site last night and here are some FAQs that pertain to us. This is ONLY for the US side and to be safe contact your country’s CITES officials to be sure. Here is the link:

https://www.fws.gov/international/pdf/q ... r-2016.pdf

1. Traveling across international borders with your instrument for personal purposes without getting your instrument registered: SAFE

As per their fact sheet, so long as your instrument contains LESS than 10kg of the threatened wood listed in Appendix II for NON-COMMERCIAL purposes, your Olwell or Grinter will be safe. However, we may all need to carry documentation in the future to prove our flutes are pre-2017. See #47 and #51 on the link I’ve posted.

2. Planning to resell in another country: NOPE

Sorry guys, the FS posts on C&F and if you head to a festival with an extra flute to sell, you will need a CITES permit for it to cross international borders and even for a single instrument. No more eBay or international postage on your Blackwood flutes. And even old flutes may need documentation to prove it was grandfathered before the new rules took place. Please see #21 and #53.

3. But What about all the instruments I have before the rule? How will this affect me?

From what I gather, these will be all considered Pre-Convention, therefore exempt from the new regulations that come into effect. However, this is where things get confusing and why it may be necessary to have receipts and documents from your makers to prove that your instrument was made and purchased before Jan 2nd, 2017. Please see #50

5. And what about the makers? What’s going to happen going forward?

Makers in the US and Canada will have to seek CITES certification and clear a lot of new rules going forward. There are a lot of bureaucracy in order to get things shipped and bringing flutes overseas to conventions. It’s gonna be a tough road so give them some time to adjust. As for repairs, I’m not sure what this means as it could put a stop to shipping them across borders for fear of seizures. Please contact them directly and see what is being done. See #22, 23, 24, 34, 35, 36, 39, 41.

I hope this clarifies as much to what’s going on with the changes. Please share and spread the info as many of us travel overseas to festivals and workshops. Also if you know about any regulations in your home country please share as well!

Cheers,

Melany

[dubrosa22]

Thanks for posting Melany, lots of ramifications from these changes!

V

[csoroz]

Info. on CITES collected by Steffen Gabriel (player & maker in the EU):
http://gabrielflutes.com/index.php?cid=13&lang=en

[Casey Burns]

There are some inaccuracies in Steffen's article. No, the blackwood doesn't all have to be registered before Jan 1st. For one thing it takes several weeks for the paperwork to process and I doubt if anyone will have their new CITES permits by then. Remember also that this only affects blackwood that is sent across International borders. It doesn't affect any blackwood sent within a country. Thus it won't have any effect on my flute sales within the United States where I live. I can send my blackwood flutes to anyone within the US and a CITES permit is not required. Most of my flute sales are within the US.

Currently, the dollar is strong relative to other currencies and so I am getting hardly any International orders anyway so I am in no rush to get the permits until this process sorts itself out some more. Frankly I am wondering if I'll get any orders at all with the incoming Republican administration. The last time we elected a Republican President (2000) I had 4 different keyed flute orders in my queue. Every single one of them canceled shortly after the election, and it was a struggle to pay bills every month! I suspect the incoming administration will crash the economy. I'm not alone. All one has to do is look at the majority of posts on this forum, eBay, and elsewhere. Few are in a buying mood and many are trying to unload musical instruments. I have heard that Martin Guitars has furloughed its employees to 3 days a week (rather than laying off some of them) and that other guitar makers are struggling. I'm one of the few who seem to be accumulating instruments - lately a few weird Mixte accordions and inexpensive horns off eBay.

Back to the CITES issue. I'll get around to sorting it out for my flutes eventually for my International clients but in the meantime I am in no huge hurry and am enjoying my winter break. I can always recommend Boxwood or Mopane to my International clients as these are under no restriction, nor likely to be any time soon. I have a few other woods up my sleeve as well. I may decide to just not get a permit and only offer these other woods internationally if paperwork is required to document every individual piece of wood in my wood inventory. I probably have over 4000 pieces of blackwood if one counts all the recently acquired clarinet production wood.

We are about to experience a major cold snap starting this weekend and lasting all next week. Hopefully little or no snow - but for some their pipes will freeze. We usually keep a fire in our woodstove in such times and blackwood scraps make excellent firewood. I have a big barrel of such wood just outside my front door and today I'll be topping it off with pieces of blackwood that I cannot render into flutes - including flute parts that were rejected on final inspection, etc. End cuts, pieces that have cracks or other fatal flaws, etc. The coals last for hours compared with the punky alder, fir and maple that most around here use for firewood.

Flute Parts made from Endangered Species make the best Firewood. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFQhO3LWtQk

Happy New Year!
Casey

[Gabriel]

Coming from lurking mode...

There are some inaccuracies in Steffen's article. No, the blackwood doesn't all have to be registered before Jan 1st. For one thing it takes several weeks for the paperwork to process and I doubt if anyone will have their new CITES permits by then. Remember also that this only affects blackwood that is sent across International borders. It doesn't affect any blackwood sent within a country. Thus it won't have any effect on my flute sales within the United States where I live. I can send my blackwood flutes to anyone within the US and a CITES permit is not required. Most of my flute sales are within the US.

- Yes, it has to be registered before January 1st (2nd, actually, but well) in Germany if you want to avoid hassle. This is not a requirement from CITES, but one from european authorities in Brussels. Swiss makers have time until february, but from them on the same problems will occur. No idea about countries outside the EU, frankly I didn't investigate much there. My local authority required me to do this, as I would need certificates (not just invoices) for my stocks from January 2nd onwards. Which don't exist, since certificates weren't needed before January 2nd. Until then, an invoice is enough. Well...

- The paperwork did take three days to process. Got the confirmation in the mail after Christmas. All safe. And the local officials had no clue initially, but proved to be very helpful and in the know just days later. Plus, they're cool guys you can easly have a chat with on the phone.

- It of course doesn't have any effect on my flute sales in Germany or in fact the EU neither, or in fact anyone's sales in their own country, but I think I should enable my customers to travel worldwide or resell their instruments, thus not equipping them with a CITES certificate for domestic sales seems inappropiate for me...but that's just me.
Additionally, the requirement to keep a detailed account on incoming and outgoing wood/flutes makes it difficult to sell a flute like I did before the regulations got into effect. But that might be different elsewhere.

I have enough blackwood in stock for about 100 flutes, and am looking into alternatives, makassar ebony and katalox look promising. Frankly, I expect CITES to remove blackwood and several other rather-instrument-than-furniture timbers from the list when they meet for their next CoP in 2019, because I guess they have no idea what they did when deciding to list all Dalbergias. We'll see.

And back into lurking mode...have a lovely 2017 everyone.

[paddler]

Thanks for summarising the situation on your website Steffen! I think you raise an interesting point regarding your customers ability to resell one of your flutes internationally. Being able to resell a flute with a CITES permit could potentially be an important issue for makers in the future, if customers become aware of these restrictions. I am also curious how these regulations will impact the eBay antique flute market. It's common for people to buy antique "rosewood" flutes internationally, and of course none of them have official certification of their age and pre CITES status.

[Casey Burns]

Well its way too late for me to officially document things now. But I suspect this isn't how things will be done in the US and I do have a paper trail of when stuff was purchased etc. that would hold up well should it be challenged. All one has to do is check the dryness of the wood. Everything harvested after Sunday would be at 20% humidity. Blackwood is not something they can kiln dry, except maybe in thin sections but certainly not in flute wood! And if I am wrong, I'll just stop selling blackwood flutes internationally.

Cheers!
Casey

[Casey Burns]

I just posted this on another topic:

I've heard that Delrin is also going to be listed under CITES as most border agents can't tell it apart from Blackwood.

Happy New Year!
Casey

[Gabriel]

Tee-hee...that's quite a point actually.

[dcopley]

Well its way too late for me to officially document things now. But I suspect this isn't how things will be done in the US and I do have a paper trail of when stuff was purchased etc. that would hold up well should it be challenged.

It looks like the EU has implemented this in a more stringent manner than in the US. I am filling out the Export Permit Application at the moment and there is no requirement to register your stock of blackwood in the way Steffen describes. You do need to document your inventory of wood as part of the Application and show that you had it before Jan 1, 2017. They are not really specific on what constitutes proof but I am using time-stamped photographs and purchase receipts. I am also wondering about posting a photo album on Facebook before the end of the year as additional evidence.

[Casey Burns]

My primary blackwood supplier has also promised me that he would provide documentation showing that any blackwood that I purchase from him in the future was purchased before CITES. He did a recent purge of paperwork of everything before 2008 and much of his was purchased before that. So that will be interesting.

[Geoffrey Ellis]

I also found that the guidelines on documenting existing stock were not clear. I sent an email to the Fish and Wildlife folks to ask for clarification but they indicated that answering e-mails might take a long time.

I have purchase receipts for much of my non-blackwood rosewoods (like cocobolo) but like Casey I have a bunch of clarinet parts and several cubic feet of blackwood billets that I have no receipts for. I simply photographed them (the photos have a timestamp) and then put them all in an e-mail with an inventory list and e-mailed it to myself to give it a further date stamp. That will probably be enough, though I don't imagine I'll ever need to demonstrate anything. I'll probably use up my stock on domestic orders and then stop stocking rosewoods. And perhaps Steffen is correct and blackwood will be taken off the list if it is not in demand for furniture!

[paddler]

American Science and Surplus sent me an order receipt, by email, for the Blackwood clarinet parts I bought. The receipt didn't have a date, but the email did. You should have received one of those for your order Geoffrey. I think that would be valuable evidence of pre CITES status, together with photographs etc. It would be nice if we could get some certificates in advance for all the flutes that will/could be made from this wood. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have streamlined their system for this. They do seem to be open to suggestions for how to improve the current situation though.

[plamas]

Hi All,
It'll be interesting see what happens here. In Ireland we're told that we should register supplies, although the CITES people here are not sure it's necessary but are advising it just in case. Like most makers I have supplies that I can provide documentation for, but also have quite a bit that I "inherited" from older makers without documentation. But surely if I list this and photograph it, then that should be sufficient. If I can show it was in my possession before Jan 2nd, then I can't have acquired it illegally, since it was all legal before that date.
Can I also point out that Dalbergia retusa, Dalbergia granadillo and Dalbergia stevensonii, all of which trade as Cocobolo are already on Appendix 2, and yet, in Europe at any rate there seem to be no active restrictions in movement or purchase, and it's still offered by many timber dealers.
Happy New Year
Hammy