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Does anyone know where I can get a list of the materials, both wood and shell, that now outlawed under the Lacey Act? I'm wondering if red abalone is on the list of 'controlled substances'.

Thanks

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michael propsom
www.propsomguitars.com

The CITES list would be a beginning: as I understand it, Lacey is the US law that's being used to enforce CITES here.

Beyond that, I don't know if such a list would be possible. Some woods, such as Honduras mahogany (S. macrophyla), are legal from some sources, and illegal from others. Brazil and Niceragua have embargoes on exports of mahogany, so you need to know the source. Also, _any_ 'wild sourced' material from anyplace could be illegal: a perfectly legit wood like hard maple could be poached from a state park, or even from the neighbor's woods, and thus be illegal.

That's why the government publications I see say that Lacey is not a 'paperwork based' law: there is no defined paperwork trail that you can get to establish the legality of the wood. It all comes down to 'due diligence': did you try to find out if it was legal or not. In some cases a simple verbal question might be sufficient, in others you might have to go to some lengths.

Due diligence or not, F&W could still confiscate the wood if they determine that it was illegally obtained somewhere up the line. Confiscation is not considered a punishment under the law, as I understand it. You could think of illegal wood as being, in some sense, 'stolen': if you buy stolen goods they are not really yours, and if the authorities find them, they can be confiscated. In that case I would guess your only recourse would be to sue the people you got the wood from to recover your money, but you would not be likely to get back the value of any labor you put in.

What due diligence does is protect you against _criminal_ liability. The wood (or the guitar you made from it) might be confiscated, but if you did your due diligence they won't prosecute you in criminal court. Since the fines and prison sentences can be pretty scary, asking a few questions seems like a good idea.

Finally (I think), even if the material is 'legal' there still could be paperwork hoops to jump through. I gather that's the case with shell. Dig up some posts by Chuck Erikson, AKA the 'Duke of Pearl', or 'chainsaw chuck', for more info on shell.

starting to make building Ovations look pretty good isn't it?

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If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. - Jack Handey

Go to the F&W website and navigate to Lacey listed woods .
I was just there a couple of days ago .
Sorry that ZI can't be more specific with instructions , but , rest assured that if I can find it ........

That's just depressing.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I totally agree with the first part, but I don't believe the intent is to complicate import and export. It is an inevetable result of the intent, which I believe was to make a BIG flyswatter. Whenever they feel the need to go after a bad guy, they've got the Lacey Act. There's no way he won't be in violation!

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Ovations are worse than using endagered wood. Just think about all the dinosaurs and EXTINCT plants that went into makeing that plastic.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Could anyone find it?

https://www.fws.gov/

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Pat

Try this:

http://www.cites.org/eng/app/index.php

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Don't confuse CITES listed species with the Lacey Act.
The Lacey Act does not refer to or list specific species, it is in effect for all species.

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Lance Peck

CITES is an international treaty dealing with threatened and endangered species, which are listed in the appendices. The Lacey Act is a US law which requires compliance with foreign laws and international treaties, so the CITES listed species are in fact covered by the Lacey Act. The Lacey Act does apply to all species, not just threatened and endangered species, because it requires compliance with all laws concerning the harvesting and transportation of plant or animal material. In answer to the OP, there is no complete Lacey List, but the CITES list is the place to start.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Depending on the circumstances, any wood can be in violation of the Lacey Act.
Lacey does not care whether the species is threatened or not.

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John

the sad thing is the the updated LACEY act was financed by a European group. Gotta love America

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

So I looked over the Appendices to CITES, and noticed a few interesting things...

What looks like every species of Diospyros (ebony) from Madagascar is on the Appendix III list. This means that Madagascar asked for them to be put on the CITES list. Cool, good idea. Looking at the rosewoods, not one type of Madagascar rosewood is listed anywhere. Why would they have not added their rosewoods to the list, we all know there's a problem with those. Money? Politics? Both, I'm sure.

Also, there are a number of Dalbergias listed (D. retusa among them) that are listed in Appendix III. Most of them are from Panama...It's interesting that Panama takes the time to get these listed, as they are ones you'd not think to find in the CITES list. For example, Dalbergia darienensis....it's a bean vine....not sure why it's listed, but you think that they'd list things like D. tucarensis, etc...


Just a few observations.