Enforce LACEY Against Illegal Wood, Maroon 5's Mickey Madden Says
Enforce LACEY Against Illegal Wood, Maroon 5's Mickey Madden Says

LOS ANGELES-- Citing environmental concerns, musicians, including Mickey Madden of Maroon 5, are calling for for legal and sustainable sourcing of wood products used in guitars and other musical instruments.

Enforce LACEY Against Illegal Wood, Maroon 5's Mickey Madden SaysMadden and other musicians joined forces with the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and environmental non-profit REVERB to express concern over the trade in precious tonewoods. The musicians said the illegal trade contributes to damaging forest practices, undermines the rule of law and leads to human rights violations in forest communities. The artist coalition called on consumers to find out where the wood in their instruments comes from in order to stop illegal logging.

“It is analogous to the illegal diamond mining industry, and the term blood diamond is applicable here if you think of this wood as ‘blood wood’,” said Mickey Madden of Maroon 5. “It is the same kind of exploitation, the same kind of rapaciousness, the same damage to local communities and local economies that we are seeing here with illegal logging.”

The United Nations estimates that up to 30 percent of the global wood products trade violates these laws, and recent studies conclude that, on a global scale, up to 50 percent of tropical deforestation for agriculture is illegal.

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