STL287: Should you use exotic wood?
For more info about Greenwood’s next Artisan EcoTour, May 7-16 in Puerto Rico: Artisan EcoTour Info & Registration
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For Michael Fortune, the chance to combine a creative woodworking experience with a guided immersion in the forests of Puerto Rico presented a unique opportunity. |
About Scott Landis:
Scott Landis is the President at GreenWood Global. He began writing profiles of prospectors, fishermen and snowshoe makers–practitioners of the fading traditions of the Canadian north. He has been writing about woodworking and sustainable forest management for more than 30 years and is the author of The Workbench Book and The Workshop Book [Taunton Press, 1987 and 1991] and the editor of Conservation by Design [WARP and the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1993]. Scott founded the Woodworkers Alliance for Rainforest Protection (WARP), which inspired the certification movement and led to the establishment of the Forest Stewardship Council. He is the founder and president of GreenWood, which trains artisan woodworkers to produce high-quality products from well-managed forests and helps connect their products to good markets. GreenWood promotes appropriate woodworking technology and the efficient use of lesser-known and lower-value tree species, waste wood and non-timber forest products. It has developed training programs for artisan woodworkers in Honduras, Peru and Puerto Rico.
Michael Bashkin brings a unique vision and sensibility to the art of guitar-building – a philosophy that crystalized during his years teaching tropical forestry in Belize, Central America. Michael’s approach is holistic, merging his experience as a visual artist, a musician and a lifelong student of wood.
Michael is also a scientist whose graduate studies at Colorado State University and post-graduate research at Duke University taught him about the mechanics of wood. He knows where wood has come from and how it’s evolving. He has studied the way trees are responding to climate change – and how the wood harvested from them can be sculpted and assembled to respond to energy in certain, very special ways.
Every two weeks, a team of Fine Woodworking staffers answers questions from readers on Shop Talk Live, Fine Woodworking‘s biweekly podcast. Send your woodworking questions to [email protected] for consideration in the regular broadcast! Our continued existence relies upon listener support. So if you enjoy the show, be sure to leave us a five-star rating and maybe even a nice comment on our iTunes page.
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