Dear EarthTalk: I'm a musician and am curious about what the
guitar industry is doing to ensure that the wood it uses is not
destroying forests. -- Chris Wiedemann, Ronkonkoma, NY Though it
has not received a lot of press to date, the industry is on the
case -- in part for the sake of its own survival, and thanks to
the hard work of a handful of green groups, guitar makers and
wood suppliers. In 1996, Gibson, one of the world's premier
guitar brands, became the first in the industry to make some of
its instruments using wood certified as "sustainably harvested"
by the non-profit Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). By 2006,
some 42 percent of the wood purchased by the company for its
Gibson USA electric guitars came from FSC-certified sources. By
2012, Gibson expects to increase that to 80 percent. Gibson
isn't the only instrument maker greening up its footprint:
Taylor, Fender, Martin, Guild, Walden, and Yamaha, along with
Gibson, have signed on as partners with the Music Wood
Coalition, a project of the enviro