And that’s a problem. Logging, urban sprawl and ranching have shrunk Brazil’s Atlantic forest, the tree’s habitat, to an eighth of its former area. The number of wild trees has dropped by four-fifths in less than a century. CITES, an international agreement, has restricted trade in brazilwood products since 2007.

But Brazil’s government wants CITES to list the trees among the most endangered species, giving them the highest protection; a CITES meeting in Samarkand that starts on Nov. 24 will decide whether to do so. The proposal has spooked practitioners of Tourte’s craft and the musicians who depend on it.

Lovers of art and nature are often soulmates, but brazilwood is splitting them apart. The bows have “this perfect mix of qualities,” producing a “very ringing sound, with a large spectrum of overtones”, says Christopher Graves, who makes them in London. Archetiers have found substitutes for other materials—ivory from helpfully extinct mammoths to replace banned elephant ivory at the tip of a bow, for example—but nothing that matches strong, springy brazilwood. Besides, archetiers use small amounts—perhaps one tree’s worth of wood over an entire career. Most of it, they say, left Brazil years ago.

The protection upgrade Brazil wants would make life difficult for them and for musicians. Any bow, even one of Tourte’s, would require a certificate to cross borders. Environmentalists say that the bureaucratic burden is a price worth paying to save the tree that gave Brazil its name, has fragrant golden flowers and exudes “a red sap when injured”, as Brazil’s submission to CITES puts it. Loggers are still felling brazilwood trees illegally to supply the bow-making industry, Brazil’s environmental agency claims. “Operation Do-Re-Mi”, started in 2018, uncovered a wood-laundering scheme that used old documents to hide the origin of newly felled trees.

It should be possible to save both brazilwood and bows. Around 3 million trees have been planted since the early 1970s, some with the help of bow-makers. Some of these could be harvested after 30-40 years of growth to make bows as the existing stocks of brazilwood run out. Wild trees need better protection, and governments and musicians can do better at registering existing stocks of brazilwood and keeping track of bows. If that can happen, there is a chance to save a remarkable tree without silencing the music.

By The Economist

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