Musical instrument makers try to maintain the use of brazilwood

While the African elephant and the hawksbill turtle were not yet endangered species, musical instrument makers used pieces of one's tusk and the other's shell for their acoustic or decorative qualities. These animals are now protected, but many older pieces, such as cellos and bassoons, made with these materials continue to be used — and one can imagine the problems that result from this.

Such as the standoff that occurred in 2014, during an international crackdown on the ivory trade, which ended up generating significant repercussions: authorities at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York confiscated several bows from musicians of the Budapest Festival Orchestra because they contained ivory tips, even though they had been made before the trade was formally declared illegal.

The bows were eventually returned, but uncertainty over protected materials persists, leading many musicians, fearful for instruments worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, to remove prohibited materials from their pieces.

Rafael Figueroa, principal cellist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, for example, replaced the original ivory tip of his nearly hundred-year-old bow, valued at $30,000, with a silver one, and the rosewood tailpiece of his cello with one made of ebony. "I've heard so many horrifying stories of confiscation from colleagues, including people who had all their paperwork in order. It became nearly impossible to get them back."

Yet not all parts can be replaced as easily as the ivory tip of a bow. In mid-2025, the Brazilian government caused panic by proposing increased international protections for an endangered tree: pernambuco wood, used in the vast majority of stringed instruments.

As a result, thousands of these objects could be subject to customs seizure, jeopardizing the multimillion-dollar orchestral touring industry and forcing musicians to consider alternative materials, such as carbon fiber.

However, the relationship between this wood and music is not a typical case of excessive consumption of environmental resources; its main consumers — that is, bow makers — have been working hard to conserve it. For decades they have worked to document legal stocks, trace the provenance of finished pieces, and replant millions of trees.

Chase Maggiano, a restorer at Rare Violins of New York, said: "To put things in perspective with regard to deforestation: a bow maker typically uses, over the course of their entire career, the equivalent of a single tree."

Alongside a group of colleagues, he led a pushback against Brazil's initiative to increase protections, mobilizing musicians from around the world as well as environmental researchers — and they succeeded.

At the most recent edition of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (known as CITES), which regulates endangered species, representatives from the United States and other nations persuaded Brazil to reach a compromise: rather than broadening protections across the board, strict government permits are now required for most international commercial activities involving pernambuco wood, including the sale or trade of bows.

The orchestra touring industry breathed a sigh of relief — musicians can continue traveling without worrying about their instruments. However, this suspension may be temporary: the issue is already expected to be addressed at the next CITES meeting in 2028, when updated research on the tree's conservation status will be presented.

Until then, manufacturers continue working to protect it through various programs, including a new reforestation project announced in June by an international conservation initiative aimed at helping restore an important watershed destroyed by deforestation near Pau Brasil, a town in the interior of Bahia.

Illegal market

Conserving the species is no easy task. The tree, whose scientific name is Paubrasilia echinata, is demanding, as it grows only in the humidity of the Atlantic Forest, one of the most biologically diverse terrestrial ecosystems on the planet.

Decades of agricultural expansion and centuries of colonial exploitation led the federal government to declare it endangered in 1992.

Loggers will sometimes go after a single tree deep in the forest

Before that, however, practically all bow makers had stockpiled the wood, according to Rodney Mohr, a luthier living in Ohio, Canada, who acquired more than 450 kilograms in 1991 from a timber dealer that had imported it in the 1960s. "There was never a good, reliable source. So when you were lucky enough to find a batch of good quality, you had to buy as much as possible," he explained via email.

Once the endangered status was declared, a highly active smuggling market emerged — one that still exists today. After the Brazilian government and CITES strengthened protective measures, its value increased, leading to bold cases of illegal extraction using high technology.

"Loggers will sometimes go after a single tree deep in the forest. I am absolutely certain it is for bow making," said Daniel Piotto, a professor of agroforestry at the Federal University of Southern Bahia.

According to a 2022 report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, environmental agents seized more than 150,000 bows and wood sticks and issued fines to timber companies and bow makers using illegally sourced pernambuco wood totaling more than $10 million (R$51 million).

Unique sound quality

Pernambuco remains the preferred material of virtually all professional instrumentalists. When Parisian clockmaker François Xavier Tourte turned to bow making in the mid-1770s, he experimented with various woods and ultimately chose the species — which until then had been used as ship ballast and for dyeing clothing — due to its density and flexibility. Competitors began to imitate him.

"If something better had been discovered in the last 150 years — and they are still searching — there would not be such an uproar over [the protection of] pernambuco," said Maggiano, who earlier this year presented an exhibition of rare historic bows in New York, including some made by Tourte that are worth more than $1 million.

There is a certain reverence; we are completely opposed to any illegal activity

Since the new rules came into effect in March, he has not had any traumatic experiences at customs. "The process has become a little more complicated, but it is worth it."

The manufacture of high-quality bows is a craft, but it is in decline, partly due to the difficulty of obtaining legally sourced wood. Most professionals also work in restoration — like double bassist Lynn Hannings, who spends more time maintaining pieces than producing new ones and serves as vice president of the International Alliance of Violin and Bow Makers for Endangered Species.

"There is a certain reverence; we are completely against any illegal activity," she said, estimating that there are only about 50 artisanal bow makers in the United States. "We follow ancient traditions and techniques for handling the materials, and it takes a long time to learn how to do these things correctly."

**A Technological Alternative**

Meanwhile, the growth of carbon fiber bow manufacturing has been nearly linear for at least 30 years, but many musicians and makers consider the material clearly inferior.

Many, but not all of them.

Mechanical engineer Bernd Müsing manufactures carbon fiber bows at the German company Arcus Bows. Founded in 1999, his production has grown from just 50 to around 2,000 bows per year. He dismisses pernambuco wood, primarily for scientific reasons.

Tourte began using pernambuco at a time when instrument makers were using softer materials for strings, mainly sheep gut. Today, strings are made from synthetic fibers wrapped in metal. Müsing, who is an amateur violinist, made careful measurements and found that carbon bows glide more quickly and smoothly over metal-wound strings than wooden ones, and that carbon has less of a dampening effect on the instrument's natural resonance.

Some musicians, like violinist Jeremy Black, spalla of the Grant Park Orchestra in Chicago and associate concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, have switched to carbon bows for practical reasons and their more accessible price.

"I have been thinking of my bow more as a tool and less as an object with which you have a deep artistic connection," said Black, adding that using the carbon bow is slightly more tiring, "like holding an electric razor."

**Conservation Status**

The fundamental question in determining the future of pernambuco is the current number of trees. When the Brazilian government sought to expand protection for the wood, it cited research claiming the population had declined by 84% over the past three generations and that only around 10,000 adult specimens remained. The document acknowledges, however, a lack of reliable data.

Bow makers and researchers, including Piotto, draw on the plantings they have made to estimate that more than 2 million trees are currently growing. However, since many are developing on plantations rather than in their natural forest habitat, some are already questioning the quality of the wood when these trees reach maturity — that is, around 20 years from now.