Learn how GreenWood entrepreneurs are earning a livelihood and preserving forests. See more videos of our work.
MaderaVerde Chief: “Outstanding Forester of the Year”
MaderaVerde Executive Director Melvin Cruz was awarded the distinction of “Outstanding Forester of the Year” by his peers. At a ceremony held on May 29, 2010, in Siguatepeque, Honduras, the College of Professional Foresters of Honduras (COLPROFORH) recognized Melvin for his “excellent service in the field of forestry science.”
Melvin is a tireless and dedicated pioneer of the social forestry movement in Honduras and an inspiration to all who have seen him in action. GreenWood extends its hearty congratulations to Melvin and his family and to all of our friends and colleagues at Fundación MaderaVerde—GreenWood’s longstanding partner in Honduras—for this well-deserved recognition.
Melvin is shown (in the vest) at center, in the photo above, with a group of indigenous Pech para-technical foresters, trained by MaderaVerde in Santa María del Carbón, Olancho, Honduras.
PlanetShifter.Com Interviews GreenWood President
Launching the New Year and a new decade, PlanetShifter.com founder Willi Paul posted an interview on January 4, 2010, with GreenWood President Scott Landis, entitled "The Sustainable Heart in GreenWoodGlobal.org: Timber-Tracking to Furniture Making." PlanetShifter is a "think tank for cutting edge green news" and, along with its companion eMagazine, GreenCatcherUnion.com, the website provides a green portal for artists, musicians, writers and inventors from around the world to post their work and exchange ideas.
Go to: www.planetshifter.com/node/1458
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Yanesha Scorp: Reinventing Traditional Tools in the Amazon
A new GreenWood tool is changing the way Yanesha carvers in the Peruvian Amazon are attacking their work. Observing the limitations of the traditional, curved hand adze, which is difficult to control and sharpen and leaves a roughly textured surface, GreenWood mentor, Brian Boggs, set about reinventing the wheel. The sculptor's adze has been in use since at least the Bronze Age, but Brian hasn't met a tool or technology he wasn't tempted to refine. A preeminent chairmaker and designer in Asheville, North Carolina, Brian has patented designs for such venerable woodworking instruments as the spokeshave and the shaving horse. At a GreenWood workshop Brian recently conducted in Peru with Yanesha artisans from the Palcázu Valley, he introduced a simple hand tool that produces a much smoother surface than the adze, with a lot less energy and risk.
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"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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Discovery Shoots GreenWood for EcoHero Series
A Discovery Channel film crew joined GreenWood and Fundación MaderaVerde staff in a field tour of several communities on the North Coast of Honduras.
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New Community Joins Guitar-Part Production
Following more than five years of groundbreaking GreenWood boatbuilding and sawmilling workshops and forest management training in the community of Copén, a second community cooperative has joined the GreenWood enterprise.
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