Reverb is backing a campaign to halt illegal logging of endangered woods and promote sustainable alternatives.
Several high-profile artists have joined with the site and the Environmental Investigation Agency, the non-profit organisation behind the No More Blood Wood campaign, to raise awareness about the relationship between wooden instruments and demand-driven logging practices now decimating ancient rainforests.
Performers such as Maroon 5, Dave Matthews Band, Linkin Park, Sara Bareilles, Michael Franti, Jack Johnson, KT Tunstall, Jason Mraz, Guster, Bonnie Raitt and Bob Weir are among many using their influence to encourage fans, legislators and instrument-makers to support the controversial US Lacey Act, which prohibits the import of and trade in illegally sourced timber and wood products.
They’ve also pledged to verify wood sources before purchasing new instruments. Artists from Mick Jagger, Willie Nelson, Sting and Lenny Kravitz to Lana Del Rey, Lilly Allen and Brandi Carlile have also signed the pledge.
Several musicians have not only signed, but participated in letter-writing campaigns to instrument manufacturers, an educational video (Getting in Tune: Musicians for Legal and Sustainable Wood) or other activities. DMB’s Stefan Lessard and Guster’s Adam Gardner, who cofounded Reverb with his environmentalist wife, Lauren Sullivan, have published newspaper opinion pieces on the subject. Gardner also testified before Congress in protest of 2012 efforts to weaken the Lacey Act.
Reverb began targeting concertgoers about the issue with 2013’s Last Summer on Earth tour; since then, millions of fans have been invited to sign postcards asking their Congressional representatives to support continued enforcement against the illegal timber and wood products trade.
In late 2015, Gardner and Sullivan traveled with Maroon 5’s James Valentine and Jesse Carmichael and members of the Environmental Investigation Agency, a nonprofit advocacy group, to the Guatemalan rainforest to document the effects of illegal logging and success of sustainable alternatives.
Their 20-minute film, Instruments of Change: Lessons from the Rainforest, premiered on 17th May at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, followed by a Facebook-livestreamed Q&A. The film also premiered in Guatemala City before policy makers and civil society.
“This issue is very similar to blood diamonds,” said Gardner. “It’s about knowing that what you buy has deep impacts far afield from the store you bought it from.”
“It’s the demand for these woods that drives this whole industry,” says Valentine. “I don’t think consumers are aware of the problem, and change could happen if consumers start to ask where their wood is coming from for any wood product, not just instruments.”
Reverb and the EIA have worked together since 2012 to encourage musicians, fans, instrument manufacturers and lawmakers to support legal and sustainably sourced timber and call for action against those who trade in stolen timber.
During that post-screening Q&A at the Grammy Museum, Gardner was asked why the group felt the need to trek into the heart of the Central American rainforest.
“We thought, ‘How do we more deeply engage artists and the public in this?'” he explained. “‘Well, let’s have fans see and learn along with these high profile artists’ eyes.'”
Watch the trailer to Instruments of Change: Lessons from the Rainforest, here.
