Gibson Guitar Raided For Trafficking in…Illegal Wood →
Illegal wood is what Gibson Guitar had in hand at the facilities in Tennessee, according to unnamed Federal investigators. Gibson is charged with maintaining a supply chain of various woods that have been declared off limits.
“The most egregious thing about this is that this wood is endangered. You can’t just bring it out and parade it around in public like common wares,” one investigator, who declined to be identified, opined.
The real question is, who’s strumming this illegal wood as we speak?
larry • 7 months ago
There’s been an update to this:
UPDATE: September 6, 2011 1:45 p.m.: Andrea Johnson, director of forest programs for the Environmental Investigation Agency, wrote to NPR to express concern over two points in this story. First, the word “verify” more accurately reflects the requirements placed on end users of endangered wood. The Lacey Act, Johnson wrote, “does not require any ‘certification’ at all per se. In the forestry world, ‘certify’ implies independent third-party certification, or government stamps, neither of which the US government recognizes as ‘proof’ of legality.”
Johnson also says she mis-spoke when she said that Gibson “was on the ground in Madagascar getting a tour to understand whether they could possibly source illegally from that country.”
“I used ‘illegally’ when I meant ‘legally’ in talking about the trip to Madagascar,” she writes. “I didn’t realize I’d done this until I was listening to the piece. I really wanted to be clear: the objective of that trip’s organizers was to look into whether there were opportunities for ‘good wood’ sourcing, and in the end after seeing the risks, only Gibson continued to purchase.”