Violin bows get a reprieve

Top-flight violinists will be able to travel unhindered by endangered species restrictions after a compromise was reached on the wood in their bows.
Professionals frequently use bows made from the pau brasil tree.
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Latin American and Caribbean countries, which are home to cedars of the Cedrela genus, accused the European Union of not consulting them adequately before proposing trade restrictions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6732711.stm

My daughter is a flute player. She always has trouble over her instrument.

Often, she has to defend her flute against some officious type who wants to pull it all apart and look inside of it. She is polite, but tells them how expensive her flute is.

with banjo players travelling to old time music festivals etc within the USA. x(

I was hassled royally with the wand and several pat downs because
my electronic temperature gun (for working with
pulled sugar) showed "traces of TNT."

The last time I flew (Chrismas), the TSA guard wanted to inspect my backpack. "So do have like a clarinet or flute in there? I need to take a look at it." "Yes, it's a flute." "So what do you have, a Gemeinhardt or Yamaha (both are inexpensive student models)?"

I mustered up my most indignant expression and said, "No, it's a Powell! (very expensive, customized, handmade model - think Stradivarius)"

The guard thrust the backpack back into my hands, without opening it, and told me I was free to go, LOL.

I think the TSA probably f-ed up sometime and ended up replacing someone's Powell flute, and they don't want to do it again anytime soon! That's the only reason I can think of for their reaction.

Tell your daughter that next time, she should just tell them it's a Powell, and see what happens.

Delighted to protect an endangered species, but the best old Martin guitars used Brazilian rosewood and a whole lot of lovely new guitars use Brazilian that was cut years ago.

for the sole purpose of clearing land for agriculture? :shrug:

The amount of Brazilian redwood in the chunky neck of my '67 pat. Dobson and the pernambuco pegs on the '20s Martin uke are trivial compared with what gets trashed.