Pernambuco bow. Photo courtesy of L'atelier d'Arthur.
On the December 8 podcast of The Strad, Heather Noonan, vice president for Advocacy at the League of American Orchestras, explains the new regulations governing pernambuco, the Brazilian wood used in bows of stringed instruments,. Earlier this year, the Brazilian government had proposed moving pernambuco from CITES Appendix II classification to Appendix I, which would have placed numerous restrictions on the travel and trade of the wood for travelling musicians, orchestras, and luthiers and their bows. Noonan attended the 19th CITES meeting in Panama City, where on November 25 a decision was reached to keep pernambuco under CITES Appendix II, with modified wording that will allow travel with the wood. The League of American Orchestras is part of an international coalition of music industry stakeholders that collaborated on a response to the proposed reclassification, communicated to their national governments, that stressed their commitment to the conservation of pernambuco but urged “an alternate policy solution that would more effectively sustain the species while avoiding damage to the music sector.”
