CITES, Lacey, & US border problems for instruments/materials

[Duke of Pearl]

India has for many years officially ruled that fingerboards (in their blank form) are legal to export, and that official Clarification is something that can't be argued by the U.S. government or anyone else (I have copies of the latest from July 13, 2011). This ruling is nothing new, since India has allowed many millions of fingerboards to be exported for decades with no problem. There are also other factors involved:

1) The U.S. has absolutely no laws prohibiting the use of Indian (or Madagascar!) rosewood and ebony as such, only general laws that require no tribal, state, national or international laws have been violated.

2) None of this has anything at all to do with overharvesting, illegal logging, or any other environmental issues. Veneers, guitars or anything else made of these same Indian woods would have been completely legal.

3) The supposed violations named in Special Agent Rayfield's warrant affidavit concern his private interpretation of Indian law about semi-finished raw materials or component parts. Lacey doesn't allow the U.S. to disagree or argue about another country's regulations, only to enforce their compliance (which in the matter of India were being complied with according to their own written document).

4) Lacey is what's called a "fact-based" as opposed to a "document-based" statute. In other words, simply possessing legitimate-looking paperwork won't protect anyone from confiscation, fines or imprisonment if indeed laws really were broken. It's the same legal principle that has always applied in U.S. mining law, that it's not how technically accurate the filed paperwork description of a claim's boundaries are but how it's actually marked out and posted on the ground.

Several complicating and confusing glitches were made on the paperwork from LMII's Indian ebony shipment, but what counts is whether or not any actual regulations were violated. They certainly don't seem to have been (in the case of India, at least), but it's up to the courts and not us to decide guilt or innocence. Hopefully, they'll toss this one out no matter how foolish it makes Special Agent Rayfield and the USFWS appear.

The Madagascar wood remains problematic since it does involve endangered trees, logging in a national forest, and a questionable state of political unrest in the country at the time the wood was exported with questions about the government's validity as a legitimately recognized power.

[tippie53]

Thanks for your insight to this .

[Duke of Pearl]

Just discovered (thanks to Lance Peck) is that counter to what I'd run across in a court decision about another agency, the Lacey Act DOES after all allow the U.S. to interpret another country's laws differently than they themselves do. There can be a violation even if the foreign law isn't enforced in that country, and even though the violation may not be a criminal one in the foreign country it will be here. (see: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/ ... Primer.pdf). In other words, you could be totally compliant according to foreign law as required by Lacey, and yet be arrested because the U.S. decides to interpret those laws differently! Am I missing something here?

The Lacey primer also states that for both paper and electronic submissions, the steps used in processing any submission will include:

"Declarations vetted for accuracy and compliance."
"Importer contacted if vetting reveals errors."

But Natalie at LMI says this not only didn't happen, but that FWS refused to talk to them when LMI found the error and tried to get it corrected:

"The broker for LMI had someone new working in their office who listed the "entry" as veneers <6mm despite all other paperwork listing it as sawn wood and fingerboards in excess of 6mm. The broker sent a letter explaining the error and attempted to contact FWS to correct the entry, but they refused to speak to him. A copy of the letter was sent to LMI as well as FWS.”

My apologies for the error. If you’ve passed that earlier info along, please also forward this correction – there’s enough wrong stuff circulating already without us adding to it!

[tippie53]

Thanks again Chuck. To see what others were doing I went to Ebay and asked all the Brazilain rosewood Sellers if they had CITIES paperwork. A few claimed to but 2 people sent CITIES paperwork. Of the 2 examples only 1 was compliant.
I also know there are sellers on Ebay claiming to be selling BRW that are not. CITIES paperwork will have a seal and a signature.

[tippie53]

this one is not legal it is missing a seal and signature at the bottom of the page

[Duke of Pearl]

For what it’s worth, Indian wood dealers are organizing and involving their government: http://articles.economictimes.indiatime ... zkiewicz/2

[tippie53]

it is good to know that supply chains are aware and being pro active to help .

[Duke of Pearl]

Here are 179 pages showing a Nashville, TN, court memorandum, a search warrant affidavit, and an Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) report concerning the 2009 Gibson raids and Madagascar and U.S. wood Tariff regulations (courtesy Stephen Bacon, on Musical Instrument Makers Forum/MIMF): http://www.scribd.com/doc/63755524/US-v ... -to-Strike.

[Ken Hundley]

I run a group on LinkedIn (you are all welcome to join) that started out as a place for guitar builders like most of us but on LinkedIn, and has quickly taken off to over 240 Luthiers and other assorted pros. One of the guys (Chuck Erikson) in the group has been heavily involved in lobbying for some changes to the ACT to protect instrument builders and users alike. Here's a link to the thread, Chuck has made a couple of good comments: http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?vi ... D_58117520

And has also provided a link for all of us to raise our voices on this issue:

http://www.linkedin.com/redirect?url=ht ... cking_disc