http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070610/sc_nm/deforestation_dc
This article appeared today on the yahoo news. It's a very disturbing
testament to the current state of the worlds tropical forests.
I'm new to this group. And so you all know a bit about where I'm coming
from - I began my infatuation with guitars early on as a kid
in Oklahoma. Something I never got out of my system.
I've worked most of my adult life as an agronomist in various tropical
countries - mostly in Latin America, some in Africa. I have been working
for the past 17 years in Mexico, as an advisor to a network of
organic farmer groups for the most part located in the Baja peninsula.
During the past 30 years or so, I've seen rampant deforestation high and
low everywhere I've been. And very few efforts, however well meaning, in
the way of conservation or planting of trees that have come anywhere
closely proportional to the tree cutting.
Quoting from the article linked above,
"From central Africa to the Amazon basin and Indonesia's islands, the
world's great forests are being lost at an annual rate of at least 13 million
hectares (32 million acres) -- an area the size of Greece or Nicaragua."
That's every year.
"Without drastic action, the United Nations says, 98 percent of remaining
forests will be gone by 2022, with dire consequences for local people and
wildlife, including endangered rhinos, tigers and orangutans."
Not to mention luthiers.
This group, the OLF, is made up of the finest, noblest, most
knowledgeable, open minded, and information sharing bunch of folks
that I've ever seen, and, in modesty, I'll tell you I've seen and been a
participant in many.
Nobody has a higher reverence for these disappearing woods, and
hopefully for the forest where they come from. If and when the beautiful
woods that make up the raw materials for this small and dedicated
community of luthiers dries up, all the centuries of knowledge, craft and
art will be silenced and useless.
Luthiers make up a tiny % of the demand for wood for the vanishing
hardwoods - but unlike the shadowy, shady, clear cutters and the greed
driven task masters, quick kill corporations and corrupt governments
whose combined efforts allow for the mowing down of the tropical forests
- the luthiers art & craft is out in the open, in the daylight for all to see
and above all a testament to why these woods and the trees and forests
are part of a heritage for all humanity.
Therefore, I ask all of you to do what you can, in little or big of ways, to
do what you can to protect what's left and contribute to the conservation
and propagation of trees and forests.
A parting note - I hope I don't get kicked out of the group, shortly after
having joined, for sermonizing. This is just an absolutely fantastic group.
I appreciate all of you, hold you all in the highest of esteem.
john g
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