AndrewKuker
Well-known member
Can any maker or dealer share their experiences with this new regulation so far? Has any shipment of wood or finished instruments been stopped, or even confiscated? Can papers be acquired for any instrument, even the ones that are already in stock? With Rosewood being used for fretboards and bridges on a wide range of ukes, from cheap Chinese imports up to the Hawaiian K brands, is it impossible now to have such an instrument shipped across international borders? Can dealers in Canada or Europe still import brands like Kala, Pono, or Kanilea, or are their businesses doomed (or forced to restrict themselves to instruments without Rosewood)? Are companies changing their models to other woods like Ebony (which may end up on that same list even faster with this measure)?
I will fill you in on our recent experiences. Last year we filed for a rosewood permit compiled of hundreds of models from various brands. Took many hours to list all the species and weights and estimate instruments being built through the year for our master file.
Then as we aited for that, earlier this year, all of our international shipments got pulled one day, not because of rosewood, but because of shell. Pearl/ abalone is not endangered, but apparently it still requires a permit of $93 per shipment. Oddly, I learned this after well over 5,000 international ukulele shipments in the last 5 years. So they gave me a warning and said next time the fine would be $5,000-$25,000. Funny but to get the permit you just go onto the F&W website, tell them what you’re shipping, and pay with your credit card. No real regulating to it. But we are doing that now on some instruments without charging the customer.
Even more odd is that is what I next found out from F&W. If an instrument has rosewood and shell, beyond the rosewood permit, the shell permit will double to $186, simply because it has rosewood, even with the rosewood permit.
Now there is an exemption you can file for that allows a small business to ship shell without needing a permit. Stipulation is that you can not ever ship any products on cites international. So no rosewood can ever ship international. So weird these rules, anyway…
Given this new information we applied for that and coordinated with most of our suppliers to make models without rosewood. Some of them had already been planning this. Kanile’a, KoAloha, Pono, and Kala are some of the main manufacturers working with us to replace or amend their instruments to have the main models available without rosewood. Mostly ebony, Kala will be using walnut on many import models. These would not require any permits.
For many makers this will not be such a big deal. For us it’s been really hard to navigate and has taken a large portion of our business for the time being. It’s a shame that they didn’t give the industry more time to adjust before putting this law into affect, but it will start to get easier. That is, until ebony joins the list….
I'm all for regulation environmental protection. Unfortunately this blanket regulation doesn't address the main problems. Corruption within third world government agencies will not slow and neither will the demand for rosewood furniture in these Chinese markets that are buying logs by the minute. But I can’t solve the worlds problems. I’ll try my best to follow the rules and still maintain our business with great customers around the world.