Killing the rainforest with our pipes

[David Lim]

Musical instruments consume a small amount of raw materials and have a long lifetime. If responsibly harvested wood is used, they should be an example of using scarce resouorces wisely.

Woods used for musical instruments command an exceptional price when compared to local and global incomes. As a result responsible harvesting is very difficult to monitor.

Between 65,000 and 100,000 Blackwood clarinets and oboes are produced each year. The vast majority of which are clarinets. The same article states a professional clarinet has a life of about 6 years.

If woods commonly used for Uilleann Pipes construction become endangered enough to go onto CITES (Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species) appendices, we could all suffer dramatically.

CITES Appendix I listed species are monitored by customs and cannot easily be moved across international borders. This even applies when the wood has been made into a set of pipes.

David

[elbogo]

"Environmentalists commonly stress the fact that there is not only a biological incentive to protecting the rainforest, but also an economic one. One square kilometer in the Peruvian Amazon has been calculated to have a value of $682,000 if intact forest is sustainably harvested for fruits, latex, and timber; $100,000 if clear-cut for commercial timber (not sustainably harvested); or $14,800 if used as cattle pasture."

[ausdag]

What's the rub on Grenadillo? I read many oboes are made of Grenadillo, so it would be good for pipes too. Is it endangered?

DavidG

[ausdag]

D'Oh!!! Grenadillo IS aftrican blackwood -
Name
African Blackwood (Dalbergia melanoxylon)
Type
Hardwood.
Other Names
Also known as Mozambique ebony, Senegal ebony,
mpingo, grenadillo, banbanus, ebene, mufunjo, and
Congowood.

http://diadot.com/wood/blackwood_african.htm


DavidG

[David Lim]

You beat me to it

Here's a useful link:

http://www.blackwoodconservation.org/tree.html

David

[ausdag]

No one can shoot me down faster than I can sheet me down

DavidG

[ausdag]

D'Oh!! I meant 'shoot'

[simonknight]

Musical instruments consume a small amount of raw materials and have a long lifetime. If responsibly harvested wood is used, they should be an example of using scarce resouorces wisely.

Woods used for musical instruments command an exceptional price when compared to local and global incomes. As a result responsible harvesting is very difficult to monitor.

Between 65,000 and 100,000 Blackwood clarinets and oboes are produced each year. The vast majority of which are clarinets. The same article states a professional clarinet has a life of about 6 years.

If woods commonly used for Uilleann Pipes construction become endangered enough to go onto CITES (Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species) appendices, we could all suffer dramatically.

CITES Appendix I listed species are monitored by customs and cannot easily be moved across international borders. This even applies when the wood has been made into a set of pipes.

David

You have a good point. The detailed report http://www.globaltrees.org/downloads/In ... fBWood.pdf (P27)

does infer that the same issues of deforestation - burning for agriculture - are the major threats and that natural regeneration should be able to cope with the volumes harvested. The numbers are a bit of a muddle, but the low-end estimate of 120m3 for instruments is about 1/6 of Mozambique's exports so it is significant. It looks like the manufacturers / importers need to work with the local companies to ensure that the resource is being managed effectively.

I'm not very convinced by their statement that a blackwood clarinet only lasts 6 years. They are very prone to cracking - the first two years are the most risky - but if looked after can last a long time. Also, cracked clarinets are repaired and worst case recycled down the musical food chain. There are tons of good 50's buffets out there.

The Buffet Greenline (the composite wood one they mention) is very stable. Longer term it is probably a very environmentaly sound decision to purchase one vs a solid Grenadilla.

But regardless of the actual lifetime, 65 to 100 thousand must die and new instruments are bought.

[Rick]

Have a look around your house.
THEN come crying about pipes.

[David Lim]

Have a look around your house.
THEN come crying about pipes.

It's always easy to find a hundred reasons to do nothing about the environment. I do this myself, as it always involves short and long term pain at a low level. But the results of doing nothing are likely to be massively more painful in the medium and long term.

The Netherlands are busy strengthening their sea defenses (at great expense) to take account of the predicted rises in sea level. They are also signatories to the Kyoto agreement.

I know we are a small group and our needs are strictly minority stuff but Pipers would also benefit from thinking ahead about the changing world environment.

David

[benwalker]

Perhaps thinking about indigenous (not sure of spelling) woods such as holly for making pipes.
There must be other woods that are suitable and not endangered (or toxic)
that are native to our countries.

[billh]

Most African blackwood is (or at least was) felled for making charcoal. Blackwood conservation sites back this up.

Unfortunately African Blackwood is one of those species which is proving very difficult to cultivate 'artificially'. The species itself is in no danger, since it is common as scrub, but useful[1] sized trees have gotten pretty scarce.

Just about the only "exotic" suitable for pipes that's currently available farmed is so-called 'sonokeling rosewood', i.e. Indian Rosewood (dalbergia latifolia) grown in Indonesia. Alas, not sure how I feel about funding the Indonesian government either, as I suspect these farms are govt. sponsored (certainly they are not small holdings). Another small disadvantage is that the farmed woods are grown faster (for commercial reasons), thus they are less dense (though perhaps with fewer knots).

An alternative is getting in touch with local sawmills and self-seasoning selected billets. There are usually some local woods that have utility for wind instruments, though rarely as dense or fine-grained as ebony or the dalbergias - for instance Laburnum was used in Ireland for pipes, and it turns a lovely almost-ebony brown with time. Boxwood is pretty hard to come by in reasonable sizes.

There has been lots of talk of fruitwoods, especially pear, as the wood that some old flat pitch instruments were made of. However from what I can see there isn't a lot of resemblance between modern pearwood and these instruments - maybe the 'pear' was really wild quince?

Leo R. used holly for a few sticks but it's not quite as dense as one would like IMO (I haven't used it).

Bill

[1] you know, big enough to make decent charcoal[/b]

[John S]

I think the reason that selective felling causes such a problem is that the hard wood part of the tree is a relatively small part, which acts as a rigid support for the rest of the tree. When the tree is felled the less valuable bits will be left behind to rot or maybe used as firewood thus releasing their stored CO2 quickly.
The basic point about sustainability is time, I'm not sure about ABW but the rainforest hard woods take of the order of 1000 years to mature.
This is why I'm always banging on about Elder at (least for drones), it takes just 5 years or so to get to the diameter needed is reasonably dense (SG 0.7-0.8 ) and already has a hole down the middle.
Again this year I'm cutting, and each year I get better at finding and seasoning the wood. If I had a managed coppice I think I could sustainably produce lots of wood.

John S

[BigDavy]

Hi Billh

Maple makes nice looking pipes and the chanters etc have a nice sound.

http://www.uilleann-pipes.com/gallery/d ... ae9a364676

Here is one of Jim's sets in maple.

David

[uillmann]

One of the local woods I have been considering trying is hornbeam (carpinus caroliniana, sometimes called blue beech) It is fairly abundant along creekbeds in the midatlantic U.S. Does anyone have any experience with this stuff?