Five letters to make your knees tremble when traveling with your guitar: CITES

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neverfoundthetime
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Sun Feb 12, 2017 1:19 pm

CITES: Convention for International Trade of Endangered Species

We all heard about the appalling federal raid on Gibson guitars a few years back where armed federal agents (storm troopers, more like) kept employees in lock-down mode for a day while they made a ruckus about protected woods such as Mahogany and Ebony. Cost Gibson over a million bucks for nothing, last I heard. Well, new legislation has taken effect in Europe (EU) as of 2nd January 2017 concerning Rosewood and these other woods which requires a passport for traveling with your guitar it has such precious and protected woods. Its a bureaucratic nightmare for everyone, of course, and i doubt that even one precious tree will be protected because of it but it may well effect you.

I'm hearing conflicting and confusing thins, on the one hand its fine as long as you are carrying under 10 kilos of precious wood (!) so you should be safe with any guitar but on the other hand I hearing you'll need an instrument passport to cross boarders outside the EU or the States. And if your luck is out your instrument can be confiscated!

Law professor and guitar player, John Thomas states in this clip that there is a warehouse in the US full of confiscated musical instruments because of this legislation. FYI and discussion:



This is what Taylor say:



Under these circumstances, would I travel to the US with my Indian Rosewood BSG, law says I can but if some star in HomeLand Security is of another opinion, I lose my guitar!


spinland
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Sun Feb 12, 2017 4:40 pm

"We're with the government and we're here to help."

Scariest phrase in any language. :(


michelew
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Mon Feb 13, 2017 1:40 am

I suspect I may regret responding to this post... I suspect some people may think I've missed the joke or that I'm being too serious and should chill out. Perhaps,... I'm having a bit of a crappy day, so it's possible that my judgement is impaired. Regardless, I feel that what I'm about to say is important and I'm willing to take the risk that I'll be perceived in those ways.

I'm someone who:
- Owns an Indian rosewood bodied guitar
- Occasionally travels across international borders with my guitar
- Is a government employee; I'm a public servant,
- Is specifically an environmental regulator - I do my bit to ensure that the environment in my state (which includes the people who live in it) is protected from all sorts of impacts, from all sorts of human activities. In previous forms of the department, that has involved minimizing and managing risks and actual impacts to our threatened species; flora and fauna alike.

Chris - thanks for the info. I'll make sure I understand what the obligation are for people who travel with guitars when I do that next. It sounds like we're exempt, but having a copy of the specific provisions might be a good idea. I'll also think about whether it's worth taking the risk that my guitar may be incorrectly identified as something that is subject to the restrictions and the risk it might be confiscated by an overzealous customs agent.

In truth, customs is already a bit of a scary process. My guitar has been checked going into and out of the US both times. When I get home, I also have to declare it. The bio security beagles check it before I'm allowed to exit customs. It's all about keeping diseases and pests out of the country that have the potential to affect our farmers and our environment generally.

CITES is been developed for a number of really good reasons. Once these species are gone they're gone. It also protects communities who might otherwise be exploited and encouraged to harvest these vulnerable species to generate a living and money for their communities.

As guitarists we can help by knowing the rules, complying with them and supporting companies who are doing their bit to support sustainable forestry.

If the legislation is broken, or the way it is implemented is impractical and has an unintended effect, get involved in improving it. That might mean writing to your local customs department to ensure they are doing practical things to make it easy for people to do the right thing without being at risk that their guitars will be confiscated unnecessarily.

Mark - public servants are often the butt of jokes; and are often targeted when it comes to cost cutting election commitments. I don't know any public servants who are lazy bums or abuse their powers. I know many who do face real risks as they go about their difficult jobs of trying to regulate pollution and other impacts on our lives and ensure that we live in a place with clean air, clean water, land that's not contaminated, where human activities are not distroying people's health and the environment that we all rely on for our health, happiness and wellbeing. In fact about a year ago an officer was killed while carrying out his job... that's how real the risks can be.

I presume there are a number of other people in the Totally Guitars community who work for the government, who are public servants and who also do their bits to serve their communities.

And yes - we really are here to help.

By all means have a giggle, but be careful not to demonized the people who are doing their bit to serve you every day.

End of sermon. Thanks for listening.

Michele


wrsomers
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Mon Feb 13, 2017 5:52 am

Thanks Michele for your post. It is very informative and totally fair. I'm glad you decided to step forward. I'm also glad you decided to speak up about uniformed comments about our public servants. Too much of that these days; whether said in jest or not, those comments can be hurtful.

My son-in-law is a police officer who I (and my daughter) worry about constantly. A former friend one day chose to make some derogatory comments about police in general...that's why he is a former friend :(

Thanks for reminding us all that most people are altruistic.

Bill


spinland
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Mon Feb 13, 2017 6:11 am

I will disengage after a disclaimer.

My wife currently works for the federal government, as does her brother. I, of course, served in the military for nearly a quarter century. Many, many of my family are in law enforcement.

My ire is not for the rank-and-file good people trying to do good things every day in their good and special lives; it's for those (distressingly numerous) elements in the "leadership" that are corrupt and self-serving and which pervert good intentions for various nefarious ends.

I could fill books with the ills done in the name of efforts that began with good intentions, but this is not the place nor have I the emotional fortitude to be a crusader.

I apologize for the flippant comment that was, also, delivered with good intentions but which was clearly too broad a brush.

Mark


michelew
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Mon Feb 13, 2017 7:07 am

Interesting article with more info about CITES. And yes we'll definitely need to work out what we can travel with internationally and what we have to do to comply with the law.

https://reverb.com/au/news/new-cites-re ... od-species

Mark - you're absolutely right that a lot of harm has been done in the name of good intentions. Indigenous people here suffered a lot of pain as a consequence of government policies, their lives continue to be affected by it; e.g. The stolen generation. So there are two sides of the coin indeed. I guess I'm a bit sensitive to generalise government employee comments. I noticed you uploaded a guitar joke thread. I could use a giggle. :)


Bill - thanks. :kiss:


spinland
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Mon Feb 13, 2017 7:12 am

Great info Michele, thanks for sharing that.

For my part I was appalled at the senseless demolition of that prized piano and my knee jerked accordingly.

My cherished new PRS has a fretboard of Brazilian Rosewood but the company also prides itself on its (as it sees it) responsible relationship with the suppliers. I spent some sleepless time last night reading about it for my peace of mind.

http://www.prsguitars.com/brazilian/


spinland
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Mon Feb 13, 2017 8:27 am

michelew wrote:
Indigenous people here suffered a lot of pain as a consequence of government policies, their lives continue to be affected by it
At the risk of going further down the "downer path" my father is part Native American and can translate a lot of Muskogean language material; he's sometimes called on for help when construction unearths something that needs to be identified as to whether the site needs special handling. My mistrust of government-at-large is ingrained in my upbringing. :dry:

Okay, enough of that. Just trying to help smooth things with some context. It's all good. :side:


wrsomers
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Mon Feb 13, 2017 8:46 am

spinland wrote:
My cherished new PRS has a fretboard of Brazilian Rosewood but the company also prides itself on its (as it sees it) responsible relationship with the suppliers. I spent some sleepless time last night reading about it for my peace of mind.

http://www.prsguitars.com/brazilian/
Not to worry Mark. PRS phased out Brazilian Rosewood in 1990 or 1991 except for some of its very high end guitars. As far as I know, your PRS Custom 22 has East Indian Rosewood.

Bill


spinland
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Mon Feb 13, 2017 8:51 am

wrsomers wrote:
Not to worry Mark. PRS phased out Brazilian Rosewood in 1990 or 1991 except for some of its very high end guitars. As far as I know, your PRS Custom 22 has East Indian Rosewood.
Ah, good to know, Bill. Thanks! B)


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