Quote:
Originally posted by Botnst
Mahogany is related to the ornamental yard tree, chinaberry (Melia). Mahogany has some great characteristics for furniture making. It is a hard, durable, rot-resistent wood with a pleasing color, grain and natural fragrance.
Virgin old-growth mahogany is worth an awful lot of money. Kind of like virgin backwalnut. Its value is so great compared to neighboring trees that the mahogany is worth harvesting and transporting even when the others are not. It also reproduces slowly. By most estimates harvest rates exceed regeneration rates. So NGO's convinced some governments to regulate harvest.
The downsides of closing-down trade in mahogany include creating artificially high prices for legal wood and creating a large black market that circumvents international law, increasing official corruption. That cut supply so the value of the wood skyrocketed, putting more pressure on the available stocks. Now there is a big, lucrative black market trade in mahogany.
Also, it affects folks in the rainforest who want to feed their families. What will they do when this source of income is gone? They'll likely grow Cannabis, coca or poppies. If you're gonna do something illegal to support your family, may as well make a lot of money at it.
I'm in favor of closing trade in mahogany as a short-term strategy to inflate prices sufficiently to encourage commercial plantation production. But the plantation solution has its problems, too. I don't think there are any clean, simple solutions. Like most enviromental rules, every action has a downside.
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Excellent, as usual, Botnst.
You have proposed a practical, real-world solution to an issue you care about, instead of illegally boarding someone else's boat and making a complet fool, and criminal, of yourself, as the Greenpeace folks and others often do. Kudos.
Mike