Learn how GreenWood entrepreneurs are earning a livelihood and preserving forests. See more videos of our work.
GreenWood trains artisans to make high-quality wood products, adding value to forest resources and creating incentives to protect biodiversity.
We foster self-sufficiency by promoting sustainable forest management, the use of lesser-known species, inspired designs, skilled hand-tool production and access to markets.
Help us preserve the world we love.
LATEST NEWS:
"Mantis" on Tour
It's common enough for students to be inspired by their teacher, but Curtis Buchanan was so fired up by the indigenous Peruvian artisans he taught last year, that he went home and redesigned the Windsor chairs he's been building for more than two decades. In February 2008 Curtis and Brian Boggs conducted a GreenWood chairmaking workshop in Oxapampa, Peru, with a group of Yanesha artisans from the Palcázu Valley in the central Amazon. Impressed by their carving ability, Curtis focused his attention on the sculpted seat, greatly increasing its depth and accentuating its dramatic profile, shown in the photo at right. The thicker seat made it possible for him to streamline both the back and the legs, thereby eliminating some of the traditional structural elements that have helped define the Windsor form for nearly 300 years.
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Global is Local
GreenWood is launching a state-of-the-art timber-tracking program in the buffer zone of the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve of Honduras—a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the most pristine forest areas in tropical America. The carefully monitored system of applied bar codes will enable GreenWood and its client, Taylor Guitar Company, to track each of the critical control points in their supply chain of mahogany guitar parts, identifying the origin of the wood and ensuring the integrity of their supply. Owners of a Taylor guitar will be able to identify the actual rainforest location from which the materials in their instrument were derived and confirm that the wood came from a well-managed source.
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Model Forests in Honduras
After five years and six export containers of mahogany guitar parts, produced by GreenWood-trained sawyers in Honduras for the Taylor Guitar Company of California, our keystone community partner, Copén, was recently nominated by the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) as one of 41 "Model Forests" in Latin America. Copén's forestry practices are managed by GreenWood's collaborating partner, Fundación MaderaVerde. The FAO evaluation was conducted by a panel of experts according to the principles, criteria and indicators of the orgranization's Model Forest program.
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"Chairmen" of Peru
Building on the solid foundation of two Peru workshops conducted earlier this year by GreenWood artisan mentors, Brian Boggs and Curtis Buchanan, Brian departed at the end of October for a third chairmaking session in the Central Amazon.
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