Sound & Fair is an organisation that aims to realise a sustainable trade in African blackwood through a Chain of Custody linking forest-dependent people in Tanzania to woodwind instrument musicians throughout the world.
Martin Doyle has recently been featured in a Sound & Fair news item regarding a new batch of Irish flutes that he has produced from Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) certified African Blackwood – a ‘world’s first’ for the flute making community. Martin’s concern for conservation and the conscious use of timber goes back to when he first began working with wood. In the Sound & Fair article he comments:
“From the time I was very young, I lamented man’s destruction of nature. It has always defied my logic and hurt me to think thad we were capable of flattening thousands of square miles of forestry so we could make hamburgers or bulldoze a beautiful meadow for a car park.
“When I started making flutes I was concerned as to where the timber came from: were they just hacking down the forests or were they sensitive to the continuation and replanting of the forests?
“In 2009 I was fortunate enough to be invited to Tanzania to see how the Mpingo Conservation and Development Initiative works and I could not have been happier with any system of conservation.”
Read the full article:
Martin Doyle launches world’s first flute made from FSC African Blackwood »
Christy Barry, Gwenn Frin and Joe Doyle playing Martin Doyle flutes made from FSC certified African blackwood.
Related
- World’s First FSC certified Flute launched – Just Forests