Bob Taylor, founder of Taylor Guitars, has been making guitars for over 30 years. He has seen and been responsible for advances in guitar making (the bolt-on neck for one). Another thing he has seen is the slow vanishing of that most precious of the luthier’s raw materials – wood.

"If I lived in 1875 and I walked over and saw the redwoods I would have thought 'I want to cut these down and build stuff'." says Taylor.

And while you don’t make guitars out of redwood you do make it out of other fast vanishing woods; spruce and mahogany, for instance. In a recent Gearwire article we discussed efforts to save part of the remaining Sitka spruce forest in the Pacific Northwest. Taylor is involved in this effort along with Gibson, Martin, Fender, Greenpeace, the Forestry Stewardship Council and Sealaska (a Native American logging company). Sealaska is a Native American logging firm who have rights to land under a settlement with the Federal Government.

The aim is to save the forest, provide guitar makers with the spruce they need and allow Sealaska to remain a profitable business. Ultimately the idea is to dedicate a forest in Alaska for musical wood. Taylor cannot say for sure when this will happen but he thinks it isn’t too far off.

"I think it is pretty close. I think in the next year they (Sealaska) might dedicated a forest,” says Taylor. “You have to give them kudos. We are going to help them brand themselves."

Taylor says that another option is to use up all the wood in the Northwest and them move on to Russia or some other area and start using up that wood. He doesn’t see that as feasible or realistic and thinks sustainability makes more sense. Sitka spruce, for instance is more valuable to guitar makers than it is to a company that wants two by fours. And guitar makers use much less wood.

"All the guitars made in the US in a year, a couple hundred thousand, require the same amount of wood one sawmill cuts in a day," says Taylor. "This is about 150 trees a year. Green Peace wants to save the environment. Their tack is to take a high profile user--one people have an affinity with and to have them work with Sealaska."

But it isn’t just about loggers, environmental organizations or guitar makers (or piano makers who also use Sitka spruce).

"The consumer is part of this. I have watched guitar players all my life say 'I am concerned about the environment but I really like this Brazilian rosewood guitar' and they buy the guitar." says Taylor.

There are also more wood and more forests in need of saving than just the Sitka spruce forests of the Pacific Northwest. As a tactic the first wide ranging, concerted effort by environmentalists, logging companies and guitar makers, has been related to the Sitka spruce. Guitar companies, on their own, have worked independently on more eco-friendly logging practices

"We are doing a lot of work with mahogany. We are six years into working in Copan, Honduras through a company called Greenwood. Greenwood refers to both being environmentally friendly and a type of furniture they make using green wood,” says Taylor. "Five years later we had the first load of wood. Native people are taking pack mules and their feet and walking out with a chainsaw and selecting a few trees. They are only allowed to cut a certain number of trees. There are no roads, they drag the logs through the bushes.”

No roads were built through the forest and the surrounding environment’s integrity is preserved. The local people also have a stake in preservation of their natural resources.

"We pay them good money for the wood. They make half their yearly income in a month period,” says Taylor. “ The program is sustainable and we are trying to spread it to other areas. We also get some wood through more traditional sources I couldn’t brag about but you can't change the whole world in a day."

Taylor guitars also works with other Central American nations, Belize, for instance, to get wood from hurricane windfalls.

One problem that arises when cutting woods often uses in guitar making is that they are large, old trees. How do you cut a tree that is several hundred years old and replace it? This goes back to the consumer being part of the equation. If consumers would look into more sustainable, but also good sounding, woods that might also help.

"There have been a few eco lines out of nontraditional materials,” says Taylor. “People get it in their mind they do not want a guitar made out of oak and cherry."

Taylor says guitar manufacturers know the woods that sound good and that don’t–there is no new miracle wood out there. So in lieu of using less traditional woods they are working on buying from more and more ecologically responsible forestry companies.

"They are the exact same trees and species. It is the logging practice not the species we are worrying about." says Taylor.

Musicians are, perhaps, more likely to pay lip service to the notion of being ecologically sensitive than the average person. But when push comes to shove, they often succumb to the lure of a pretty instrument. Remember that all the guitars made in the world are a drop in the bucket of all the wood cut down.

"The answer isn't one company making an eco friendly guitar,” says Taylor. “ It is getting the world to move to a more eco friendly way of living. We are willing to put our money where out mouth is on this."