The Convention of International Trade of Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) held their annual meeting September 24 – October 4 in South Africa. In this session, they changed regulations on ALL species of rosewood under the genus Dalbergia and three bubinga species. These are now listed under CITES Appendix II, effective January 2, 2017.
Knowing that Indian rosewood, and rosewoods in general, are a highly traditional tonewood used in guitars, many people are concerned about how this will affect them on future purchases, as well as current guitars they may already have. Don't fret, if you are shipping instruments within the borders of your country, or taking instruments internationally for personal use, and the total weight is less than 22 lbs of regulated wood, then you don't need to do anything. It should be noted that a musical performance is not considered a commercial use.
If you are selling a guitar internationally and it contains any of the controlled woods, then you need to get an export/re-export certificate from US Fish and Wildlife.
At Breedlove, we have every batch of rosewood, cocobolo, and bubinga segregated by receipt so we can readily verify invoices and date of arrival in the USA. It will be no problem to validate pre-listing wood (January 2, 2017) with wood we import into the USA after January 2, 2017. Should you wish to apply for a commercial permit on a Breedlove guitar that was purchased years before, we can verify that it was pre-listing by serial numbers.
Our Chinese suppliers are also working diligently to get the appropriate paperwork to continue timely shipments of our new Stage Exotic models, as well as our other models with rosewood fingerboards. We are thrilled to see them stepping up and working with us to make sure all our instruments are in full compliance.
This ruling does not change the regulations on Brazilian rosewood, which is a CITES Appendix I listing. While Breedlove does have an extensive collection of this treasured tonewood, like all other woods in our inventory, it is fully documented and in accordance with CITES regulations. It is free to travel and be sold internationally. The permits needed to travel with Brazilian rosewood are different. And like the permit help we offered above, we will help with appropriate permits needed for Breedlove guitars built with Brazilian rosewood as well.
