Our history
GreenWood launched its integrated program of artisan development on the North Coast of Honduras in 1993 as a field project of the Woodworkers Alliance for Rainforest Protection (WARP). WARP was a nonprofit dedicated to conserving forests through responsible wood use. It provided the early impetus for the founding of one of the world’s first certification programs, the Forest Stewardship Council. In 2001 GreenWood was incorporated as a U.S.-based nonprofit educational organization [501(c)(3)]. By 2005, it had established a nonprofit counterpart, Fundación MaderaVerde, in Honduras, where it has trained several hundred artisans, sawyers and forest owners in ten different communities and helped to manage more than 30,000 acres of tropical forest.
From the outset, GreenWood set high standards for transparency and collaboration with forest communities, local and international nonprofits and governing authorities. Our staff and colleagues in Honduras devised and implemented the first officially-sanctioned, secondary forest management program in the country. Secondary forests throughout the region represent an undervalued and largely untapped resource, whose potential is routinely overlooked by governments, NGOs and the market. Utilizing wood and nontimber products from secondary forests, GreenWood artisans in Honduras have produced more than 40 furniture designs and accessories, most of them sold to local and regional clients.
Embarking on another new enterprise in 2000, GreenWood sawyers in the Mosquitia region of Honduras produced many of the naturally curved ship's knees that were used in the reproduction of the Schooner Amistad at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut.
Between 2008 and 2013 GreenWood provided extensive training and support for artisan bowl carvers in several indigenous Yanesha communities in the Peruvian Amazon. Focusing on tooling, sharpening, quality control and efficiency, GreenWood instructors redesigned the locally made adzes and other hand tools, constructing small forges (fueled by homemade charcoal) to reshape and re-temper the cutting edges of artisan tools. We also introduced the use of the chainsaw to eliminate waste wood in the preparation of bowl stock, saving time and reducing the cumulative effect of repetitive motion on artisan arms and shoulders.
In 2009 in the village of Mezapita, Atlántida, GreenWood conducted an inventory and developed a management plan for mimbre, a wicker-like vine that’s traditionally extracted through uncontrolled practices. GreenWood’s innovative management was funded by USAID and its plan was approved by AFE-COHDEFOR, the governing forest authority in Honduras. This landmark process brought together a broad range of stakeholders within the client community (forest owners, womens’ groups, sawyers, artisans, local leaders and others) and fostered participation and transparency among individuals and organizations that had previously enjoyed little communication or coordination. Conducting additional research in 2011, in collaboration with our MaderaVerde colleagues and the Missouri Botanical Garden, the previously unidentified mimbre species is now known as Monstera maderaverde.
Our production of ship’s knees was followed by two boatbuilding workshops, also conducted in collaboration with Mystic Seaport, and our installation of three Wood-Mizer bandsaws, purchased by our community partners through low-interest loans facilitated by GreenWood. This primary processing equipment formed the basis of our ongoing production and export over the last fifteen years of more than 35 containers of high-quality Honduras mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) guitar parts and furniture wood from three agroforestry cooperatives to the Taylor Guitar Company in California, Collings Guitars in Texas, Brian Boggs Chairmakers in North Carolina and others.
“…this ongoing enterprise has generated sales in excess of $1.75 million, with more than 60% of the proceeds distributed directly to our community partners.”
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These agroforestry cooperatives lie in the buffer zone of the 1.3-million-acre Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve—a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Danger. The “artisanal” scale of each group’s production amounts to a non-mechanized, legally managed harvest of no more than 6 or 8 mature trees each year. These are derived from a productive forest area averaging more than 1,800 hectares, with a mahogany density of one or two trees per hectare. Professional foresters help each group develop and oversee their own management plan, and apply a traceability system that verifies legality and the integrity of the supply chain from forest to market.
This GreenWood mahogany initiative was implemented with minimal grant support, almost all project-related expenses having been underwritten by the proceeds from product sales. Building on GreenWood’s longstanding relationships with these clients and communities, and our Honduran colleagues at Fundación MaderaVerde, this ongoing enterprise has generated sales in excess of $1.75 million, with more than 60 percent of the proceeds distributed directly to our community partners.
In 2016 GreenWood launched a new woodturning enterprise in Honduras. In collaboration with the American Association of Woodturners (AAW), we installed innovative two-man bicycle-drive lathes and began training artisan turners in the production of turned carving mallets for the export market. Utilizing five different lesser-known wood species for this project, our artisans exported two shipments totaling 1,000 mallets for Lee Valley Tools in Canada. Mallet production is ongoing, with several new artisans being added to our team of turners and new turned products under consideration.
In the aftermath of Hurricane María in Puerto Rico, GreenWood was invited to assist in the island’s recovery by the USDA Caribbean Climate Hub at the U.S. Forest Service’s International Institute of Tropical Forestry. Seeking efficient ways to add value to some of the vast quantity of tropical woods salvaged from the hurricane, we led several sawmilling workshops and are helping to identify potential products and new markets. We also designed a unique, innovative program of Artisan EcoTours aimed at strengthening the connection between the woodworking community and Puerto Rico’s valuable tropical forest resources. These EcoTours will combine the abundant design talents and deep teaching experience of our instructors, who will lead dynamic, collaborative workshops in a variety of woodworking specialties. Drawing inspiration from the island’s forested resources, the program will provide a unique opportunity to work with experts and dedicated colleagues across different cultures and disciplines—fostering awareness about climate change, building resilience to catastrophic hurricanes and strengthening the creative ties that bind us all.