The lengthy article includes the following:
And continues:The government has revoked the right to log from 28 groups after discovering they were selling hardwood that was felled illegally. ``There is a lot of rain forest to watch over,'' says Carlos Chamochumbi, president of the Peruvian government's Multi- Sector Commission to Fight Against Illegal Logging. ``There is a lot of corruption.'' He says slaves are used in illegal logging operations.
Nearly all of the 70,000 guitars that Nazareth, Pennsylvania-based C.F. Martin sells annually contain Peruvian mahogany, CEO Christian Martin says.
I've previously read about illegal logging in the rain forest and Martin's vigilance in purchasing only from legal sources despite the increasing difficulty in acquiring the woods needed to make these elite instruments, but hadn't heard about slave labor in South America. It seems most of this type of article in the past were focused on 'sweatshops' in Asia and indo-china.Martin says he will still use the wood because his main importer, T. Baird McIlvain International Co., says it's legally harvested. Dick Boak, a Martin spokesman, says the company will work to clean up its supply chain.
``We want to do the right thing,'' he says. ``It's our desire to participate in any way we can to clean this up.''
Martin's response was appropriate and made saintly by the individual from a flooring company in King of Prussia, PA, immediately quoted after them in the article who said, " ``I've never seen it in Latin America in my entire life,'' Reitz, 33, says. ``To be honest, I don't think that slavery exists in Latin America.''
I don't know about you, but I don't think Mr. Reitz and his 33 years of life-experience have much of a future in PR, or at his company for that matter.
2 comments:
Importing the mahogany to the US may be legal by the standards of the import company anb by the blind eye of those apt to profit from it, but it sounds like Mr Martin is not interested in human rights, and is passing the responsibility off.
I didn't get the same impression. There are obviously some companies that are abiding by the legal requirements in regard to logging in the rain forest, and there are others who are not. Identifying who is legal seems to be the trick as the article notes some companies have forged documents to "appear" to be legal when they are not.
I don't think you can expect commerce with South America to halt because some entities are illegal, but you do have to be diligent in investigating with whom you work (hence you can't have the blind eye you mention).
I posted this for two reasons, one of course is the local tie-in, the other was that I had not heard of slavery issue in this region previously, only the illegal logging.
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!
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