After reading Debra's great post on the federal investigation of Gibson Guitars' Nashville factory for violating the Lacy Act, I remembered watching an episode of "Big Ideas for a Small Planet" on the Sundance Channel that focused on the art of sustainable guitar making. While guitars aren't the biggest threat to our forests, without sustainable practices guitar companies may find themselves running out of wood. The special focused on Martin Guitars and interviewed the company's CEO Chris Martin. I couldn't find a clip from "Big Ideas" but did find a short clip from "Eco Biz" (above).
Martin Guitars, along with Taylor, Gibson, Yamaha, and Fender have all teamed up with Greenpeace to form the Music Wood Campaign.
The Greenpeace Music Wood Campaign is partnering with the music industry to protect threatened forest habitats and safeguard the future of the trees critical to making musical instruments. We are working together to increase the availability of traditional woods used by musical instrument manufacturers that can be certified to the exacting management standards of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and demonstrating, one species at a time, that there is a strong and growing market for well-managed, FSC certified wood.