Perhaps not the first place many people would think to look for innovation in design. But some of the world's leading craftsmen of musical instruments are keeping an eye on the Amazonian Luthier Workshop School.
Luthiers are master artisans of handmade string instruments.
They swear by a trusty stable of raw materials. In our era of rampant deforestation, the ancestral list now seems top-heavy with increasingly rare and expensive species of wood like rosewood and mahogany. As part a supply channel of sustainable forestry products, the Amazonian luthier school receives from its dozens of species that have not traditionally been commercialized in any way - let alone employed by precision artisans like luthiers. Rational logging involves culling mature trees across a broad range of species instead of the traditional but destructive practice of felling nearly all individuals of a few high-value trees. Precious Woods Amazon, a Swiss-owned company that supplies wood to the luthier school, fells about 40 species of trees compared to fewer than a dozen customarily taken by conventional loggers.