# Exotic Wood Ethics



## hobbitling (Oct 3, 2013)

So here's an awkward subject for us to discuss...

I love looking at all the beautiful knives and handles people on this forum make, and I enjoy reading about all these exotic woods that we use to make handles, but I've noticed that some of the woods I see used for handles (and some that I am currently using myself in my projects) are fairly rare, and in some cases actually threatened or endangered to some degree. Even the ones that aren't legally protected are often from tropical or semi-tropical forests, which means that we are directly supporting rain-forest logging.

The rosewoods and ebonies in particular are all from tropical or semi-tropical forests, and some have very small natural ranges. desert ironwood is becoming increasingly rare in some areas, and it is one of the most ecologically important plants in the sonoran desert. Koa is protected in Hawaii, and only dead trees may be used for wood. I could go on down the list, but you get the idea. Most of these naturally hard, dense woods are extremely slow growing, and cannot be grown on plantations, which means that we're using old-growth trees that will not re-grow any time soon.

So I'm wondering, Are there species of wood that any of you refuse to buy? Do any of you try to buy from sustainable sources (salvaged, reclaimed, plantation grown, dead wood etc...), and if so, how to do you know these sources are actually sustainable?. Do you check to see if a wood is endangered before buying it?


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## Burl Source (Oct 3, 2013)

Most of the exotic woods that you are talking about were cut for use making furniture or veneer for paneling.
When it comes to this sort of wood the logging / timber companies tend to look for the lowest cost method of harvesting the wood.
That is usually clear cutting. Kind of like burning down a house so you can catch the rats when they run out of the house.
They still do a lot of clear cutting in Oregon. We call them the forest rapers.
There will be a thin strip of trees next to the road with barren wasteland on the other side.

Most of the highly figured woods and burls come from the salvage of stumps left behind by the forest raping scum.
Burls are usually cut from the side of the tree trunk much like pruning off a branch.

In a nutshell;
If it is straight grain wood they probably clear cut everything so they could get the wood at the lowest cost.
If it is highly figured wood, it was probably salvaged wood.


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## Burl Source (Oct 3, 2013)

Just wanted to add a little bit more.
If you buy plywood, particle board or 2x4s, they most likely clearcut everything in sight to make them.
I used to live in Washington where they would clearcut everything. Then the big and small went offshore to international waters where they would chip it all and make particle board. Then it would come back in the same port to be sold back to us. By doing the processing in international waters they are able to bypass any environmental guidelines and do whatever they want. By doing this the mills shut down so no local jobs, no tax revenues and higher profits for the timber companies at the expense of everyone else.


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## Zwiefel (Oct 3, 2013)

I had wondered about this before as well. thanks for the insight Mark!


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## Twistington (Oct 3, 2013)

I try to stick to reputable vendors when I buy wood: people/companies who I know reflect and care about the block of cells they sell to me.


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## Burl Source (Oct 3, 2013)

OK, you have got me going now. Not sure if this goes under the umbrella of forbidden politics. If so, mods feel free to delete.
For the past couple years the timber companies around here have been spraying the forests with a defoliant to kill the underbrush.
They say that it is harmless to people and animals. But there have been a number of documented cases of the chemicals from the runoff poisoning wells and the watersheds.
So far most of the response has been "just ignore those environmental wackos".
I say "***....if you are a big corporation you can do whatever you want as long as you contribute to the tax base, or more likely grease the right palms".


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## hobbitling (Oct 3, 2013)

This is actually a very civilized and informative thread so far. Thanks Mark. I always assumed burls were probably trimmed in such a way as to leave the tree standing in most cases, right? So that's perfectly fine. And certainly temperate trees like maple grow quickly enough that we're in no danger of depleting North American forests, at least not in the Northeast where I live (although we have transformed a lot of old growth to young, secondary growth, which is quite ecologically different).

I guess it really all comes down to how it is harvested (clearcut vs selective harvest etc...), but it's just so hard to know when you walk into a wood store. I agree about the plywood and pulpwood industries. they are often completely indiscriminate in their logging. Toilet paper and particle board can be just as bad, or worse, for the envirionment as exotic wood harvesting. I didn't know they used offshore factory ships to pulp the wood. That's a little alarming. I know that process is a messy business.

And there are lots of exotic woods that aren't generally used for handles. Ipe, Jatoba, and Mahogany logging is a very destructive process, for example, but as you mentioned, that's mostly for flooring, and the trees used for marine plywood and luan especially are a major target for clear-cutters, but again, that's not a knife-making issue.

But I'm thinking, for example, of things like Cocobolo, which was recently put on the CITES appendix II list, or African Blackwood, or other tropical species that are becoming increasingly scarce. I'm wondering what the harvesting process is like for those species, the really high end species where a single log can be worth tens of of thousands of dollars (or more, once it's milled into blanks). It's not just knife makers either, Gibson Guitars got fined a while back for buying illegally harvested wood, for example. I would imagine the financial incentive to poach these trees must be hard for people in these relatively poor countries to resist.

http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/restricted-and-endangered-wood-species/
http://www.rainforestrelief.org/What_to_Avoid_and_Alternatives/Rainforest_Wood.html


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## Mr.Svinarich (Oct 3, 2013)

I was curious about this too, thanks for clearing up the matter.

Here in MI the forest rapers abond...


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## pkjames (Oct 3, 2013)

One benefit of being in down under is there are lots of timber got cut ages ago, so it's not hard to just get a few pieces of wood for a project that's probably being in someone's shed for 20 years. Even they are protected species now, they weren't when they were cut.

Not to mention that burls like mallee and coolibah are quite easy to get.


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## CrisAnderson27 (Oct 3, 2013)

You mentioned ironwood. It's nowhere near as rare as many vendors would like you to believe. However...in every state that I'm aware it grows in...if you cut down an ironwood tree, and get caught...it's no small issue. You can file for a permit to pull out deadwood and such though.


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## apicius9 (Oct 4, 2013)

I have been thinking about that also, trying not to re-stock woods of which I know they are problematic. But I admit, I never made a very concentrated effort to educate myself about it, I was rather thinking to focus more and more on sustainable local Hawaiian woods. I did not know, for example, that African blackwood might be getting scarce. I got mine from people who - according to their info - have family connections to an African country and don't do this on a large scale, and I decided to believe that. Koa is, as far as I know, not such a big issue. Clearly, they harvested too much in the past, that's why there are restrictions to only harvest fallen trees at this time. But it gets replanted a lot and is not rare as such, just that there are not too many really old trees left, a generational gap, so to speak. But I am not a forrestry person, so I would not bet on this...

There would definitely be woods I would miss if I limited it to Hawaiian woods, although a limit to US woods would still give a nice and large range. For me, one of the joys it to experience all the varieties and try to be creative with them. But I may rethink this and narrow down my range. Easier to limit it to a few reliable sources also. We'll see, not yet sure where the whole woodworking thing will be going anyway.

Stefan


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## hobbitling (Oct 4, 2013)

Here's what I've found out after some research...The two main lists that you can refer to when considering a wood are...

*CITES* (Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species) is a treaty whose aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten the survival of the species in the wild, and it accords varying degrees of protection to more than 34,000 species of animals and plants. There are three levels of protection, with level I being the most restricted (pretty much illegal to trade except for scientific purposes), and level II and III being regulated but still legally tradeable (often only with permits which can be difficult and expensive to obtain). These levels of protection are referred to as "Appendices", so you'll often hear of a species being described as an "CITES Appendix II species" for example. The countries that have signed this treaty all have their own laws to enforce them, at least on paper, Enforcement of those laws is often lacking.

The *IUCN* (International Union for Conservation of Nature), is an international organization which was mostly responsible for getting CITES started, and it maintains another list called the "*IUCN Red List*" This list is a scientific list, not a legal one. It is based on extinction risk, according to scientific data, but the species on this list are not necessarily legally protected. Many species that are listed as endangered on the Red List are still actively traded. Many are also included in the CITES appendices, or protected at the national level. This list has categories that make a bit more sense like "critically endangered" and "vulnerable". 

Here's an article from The Wood Database with a pretty comprehensive list. 
http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/restricted-and-endangered-wood-species/


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## hobbitling (Oct 9, 2013)

Another interesting article on wood sustainability, focusing on ebony and other dark woods.
http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/ebony-dark-outlook-dark-woods/


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## Marko Tsourkan (Oct 9, 2013)

hobbitling said:


> Another interesting article on wood sustainability, focusing on ebony and other dark woods.
> http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/ebony-dark-outlook-dark-woods/



I would like to eventually stop using endangered tropical hardwoods and switch completely to using stabilized domestic highly figured woods or woods that are not endangered. 

The local wood vendor I have been getting my wood from has a large stock of ebony that is been sitting there for years. I got my cocobolo there years ago, and am thinking of getting some old stock Lignum Vitae. Beyobnd that, I would like to exclusively use woods like mapple, koa, and other domestic woods.


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## Keith Sinclair (Oct 9, 2013)

It is easy to fall for the beauty of these woods & not think of where they come from.Is most of the highly figured burl from stumps & even roots?I got some Black Ash Burl fr. Minnesota.Swirls,eyes large & small.I think they come fr. these large woody areas at the ground level of the stump.

Another nice burl is Makamong from Thailand,they say it is rare,but you can find knife scales on the web.


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## hobbitling (Oct 9, 2013)

I know how you feel Marko. I've basically inherited some exotic wood from my wife's grandfather, and I picked some up at an estate sale not long ago, but eventually I'll use that all up, which is a shame, because I absolutely love working with it. Stabilized domestics can be beautiful in their own way, but it's impossible to imitate some of the colors, patterns, and mechanical properties of some of the tropicals. I'm perfectly fine with using old "grandfathered in" wood because it would otherwise be thrown away, and it doesn't directly support the depletion of these species. And I'm perfectly OK with using sustainably harvested wood (although it's hard to be sure). But I must admit I often browse the websites of exotic wood vendors and imagine the possibilities. Then I think about my (not yet born) grandchildren, and I wonder if these trees will even exist when they grow up. 

I saw something the other day that really bothered me: rosewood cell phone cases. Go ahead, google it if you don't believe me. And they come in all kinds of rare woods. I thought, "it must be imitation rosewood, right?". Nope. Real rosewood, for your cell phone. Holy...Crap.
It's one thing to use rare wood for something that will last a long time. A well made, well maintained knife can last for generations. That's the sort of thing these woods should be used for, the kinds of items that we can give to our children and grandchildren. But an iphone case? Some self-righteous little hipster will use it for a year, the next model won't fit, and it will be thrown away!


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## hobbitling (Oct 9, 2013)

I think Burls are basically growths that bulge out from the sides of trees (sort of like a tumor or wart, but it doesn't really cause the tree any harm). I think someone earlier in this thread mentioned that burls are generally trimmed from standing trees, so that the tree usually lives.


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## Keith Sinclair (Oct 10, 2013)

hobbitling said:


> I think Burls are basically growths that bulge out from the sides of trees (sort of like a tumor or wart, but it doesn't really cause the tree any harm). I think someone earlier in this thread mentioned that burls are generally trimmed from standing trees, so that the tree usually lives.



Thanks I really didn't know exactly what burls where so I looked it up.Burls are often caused by stress.Rounded outgrowth in which the grain has grown in a deformed manner.The small knots are from dormant buds.Some burls grow beneath the ground attached to roots.Others grow on the trunks esp. around the base as in redwood trees.They can grow on limbs as well.

So as mentioned after a tree is cut down there is burl to be had in the stump & roots.Or after a tree has died & fallen over.


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