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  Shannon Rogers

  8 years ago

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  Carl thanks for bringing this up.  It is important that designers, builders or any users of ANY species be aware of how it was sourced.  I think you will find that there are some highly sustainable forestry initiatives going on in Africa.  In fact we have a much better line of sight into the silvicultural practices as well as chain of custody documentation all the way back to the stump.  Certification and validation schemes like TLTV and VLO provide outstanding oversight (in my opinion the best in the world) so that importers can be certain they are doing business with good sawmills from legal concessions using sustainable harvestry practices.  Sapele is not a CITES listed species so it can be imported easily, but Lacey is most concerned with local regulations at the point of harvest so the importer needs to do their due diligence to be certain that the lumber comes from an approved concession and the appropriate amount of transformation is done in country.

  
  

  All that being said, I would urge anyone considering buying lumber of any species to ask questions about its origin.  The chain of custody is well documented (in accordance with the Lacey Act) so anyone can trace back to a verifiable and sustainable mill.  It is these businesses that are taking the most care of the resource and in order to protect these species we need to keep the market alive by buying them.  If the resource loses its value then the companies that take great pains to manage them will disappear.

  
  

  So yes, think twice before buying and species if you don't know where it came from.  But ask questions and you might be surprised at how sustainable the silviculture is.

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  Carl Burdick

  8 years ago

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  Sapele is a IUCN (International Union for the Conversation of Nature) listed Vulnerable species and is on the Red List of Threatened Species. I know most designers don't actually care about any of that, but if you can help it...think twice.  In the United States, it may even be ILLEGAL to import Sapele because of the Lacey Act as it is often illegally harvested. 
  from the iucn:
  "The Sapele, Entandrophragma cylindricum, is a species of mahogany listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. It ranges widely in west and central Africa from Sierra Leone east to Uganda and south to Angola, and has a scattered distribution in semi-deciduous forests. In comparison with other species of Entandrophragma, this species can occur in drier habitats, including abandoned fields, but it does not respond well to burning. It is a large tree, growing to 50m in height, with flowers growing directly from the trunk and major branches.It is an extremely slow-growing tree, one of the slowest in the genus Entandrophragma, and this is a major problem as it is of high economic value and is a major source of African hardwood, heavily exploited throughout its range. In some places, populations have been heavily depleted due to over-exploitation. The species is also believed to be at risk from climate change.The Sapele occurs in a number of protected areas across its range. In some countries, logging of this species is subject to legal restrictions, but enforcement is a problem in many regions. "
  http://support.iucnredlist.org/species/sapele

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