Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz is a treehugger. The bloggers who wrote about the August 2011 raids never did their homework on Henry J.
He once sat for an interview with The Independent:
The head of Gibson, home of the Les Paul guitar, has warned that the rare and exotic woods used to craft the best instruments are running out at such a rate that the guitar could become an endangered species."The true wood guitar is disappearing quickly. We need to act now because it just won't be around in 10 years," said Henry Juszkiewicz, the chief executive of Gibson, whose instruments are brandished by rock legends including Slash, Dave Grohl and Jimmy Page. The wood traditionally used to fashion premium guitars – rosewood, maple, ebony, mahogany and spruce – is being lost as a result of over-harvesting and the depletion of rainforests.
Henry J. is a founding member of the Rainforest Alliance and was on the Board of Directors until Gibson was busted for buying illegal Madgacar ebony in 2009. Henry J. is still a member. The Rainforest Alliance believes in man-made global warming and has programs and literature to promote this idea.
Henry J. is a founding member of a group that set up a program to set up a certification program for the harvesting of rare trees (although Gibson didn't follow that protocol in 2011, but claimed it did in the press release, and the group had to issue a disclosure on its website).
According to Gibson's website:
Gibson, the celebrated US guitar manufacturer, has pledged to eliminate illegal timber from its supply chain and has made a commitment to source all timber from FSC-certified forests in the near future.
1,000 trees a day? The FSC- group that Gibson has aligned itself with directly - and aligned itself through the Rainforest Alliance with over a dozen years ago back when Henry J. helped found the Rainforest Alliance, says:
Every year an area half the size of the UK is cleared of natural forests: temperate and tropical, North and South and on every continent.
If you want a treehugger, you don't have to look any further than Gibson's CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz.
I once contracted for a company out of Maine whose family planted over a hundred
black walnut trees to hand down to the children with the land. They told me
the value of those trees was about 10k per. You would think that companies would
create their own groves to rotate over decades for a constant supply. /shrug
But I would guess that the Ten years down the road keeps being ten years every year,
same as the drilling for oil shun.
/salute