Brazilian rosewood is that good wood for guitars.

Denver Post reports:

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL, Oct. 20th - 350 federal officers, supported by state police and government environmental agents, arrested 23 people for illegally cutting down Brazilian rosewood and exporting it to the United States.

The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service said it carried out a search in central Massachusetts in connection with the investigation. Police also began serving 67 search and seizure warrants for the illegal extraction of Brazilian rosewood, an endangered tree species native to eastern Brazil and found only in this country.

Rosewood, known in Brazil as jacaranda da bahia, is protected by Brazilian law and by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

Hard and dense, it is also fashioned into flooring, furniture and other items. Investigators said the gang exported at least 13 tons of rosewood in the past four years, mainly to the United States.

In comments yesterday, someone was speculating on the actual status and amount of Brazilian rosewood left in the world. That status ain’t good. The fact is – is that by the 90’s, this uncommon variety of coastal tree was nearly cut down to extinction.

We gotta stop choppin, or the Earth will be bald and the Starbucks bubble city you live in won’t be able to serve coffee because all the plants and trees are gone.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says:

The activities of the present industry in Brazil are on a much reduced scale and pose no threat of extinction of the species. Extensive areas of rosewood remain within the forest which are inaccessible and would be uneconomic to harvest. However, the extraction of some 10 000 t of rosewood trees annually results in a progressive erosion of the germplasm base.