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Dear [add your MP name here],
I am your constituent living at [add your full address and postcode here].
I am a professional musician. I am deeply concerned about the proposal by Brazil to move the only wood that is grown for the manufacture of bows for stringed instruments from the current listing of Appendix II to Appendix I. If the proposal is passed, it will have a devastating effect, on not only the worldwide community of musicians, but the bow makers and the individual CITES authorities.
Pau-Brasil (Paubrasilia echinata), also known as pernambuco, is a tree that grows only in Brazil and is used predominantly for the manufacture of bows for stringed instruments. The species is endangered, however there is significant ongoing conservation work being done to protect not only the species, but the music industry and musicians who are so reliant on being able to move freely and trade their bows.
According to the International Pernambuco Conservation Initiative (IPCI) a ban is not necessary or appropriate. Instead, it should be possible for Government decision makers to make it possible to achieve all of the following crucially important and commonly shared goals:
- Ensure full protection of natural populations of the species against exploitation and illegal trade
- Ensure sustainable production and trade of new bows using pau-brasil grown on regulated plantations; and
- Preserve the centuries old cultural and artistic tradition of stringed -instrument music around the world by ensuring pau-brasil can be legally traded for bow making and cross border performances globally.
If the proposal is passed in November 2025 at the next CoP in Uzbekistan, then it will have the following impact on musicians:
- With very limited exceptions, buying and selling the large universe of existing pau-brasil bows would be banned. Musicians would lose access to these bows, which are essential to their livelihoods and cannot be even remotely compared to bows made of alternative woods or other materials. Musicians would also lose the value of their investments in these highly valuable items, which in many cases represents their life savings.
- Musicians travelling with any of the vast number of bows created over the 250 years of modern bow making would require a CITES permit or Musical Instrument Certificate (MIC). These require stamping at borders on each occasion a musician crosses a border, regardless of the bow's age or origin. Some countries do not accept MIC’s, and others restrict their use to a limited number of designated entry and exit points creating a high burden on travelling musicians. To obtain CITES permits, musicians, makers and sellers would be required to provide documents proving that the bow, or the wood from which it is made, was obtained prior to September 13, 2007. For most bows, experts and bow owners would find it impossible to prove the bows origin, age and/or the date on which the tree they came from was harvested. Over the course of the centuries of the existence of bows, documents were not required. Typically bows are sold from owner to owner and often handed down from generation to generation.
- The historic craft of bow making would be brought to an end, both inside Brazil where it is an emerging source of local livelihoods, and outside Brazil in countries such as the UK, where there is a long tradition of companies making fine bows. The loss of this industry would create irreparable (and avoidable) harm to music and culture across the globe.
- Finally, requiring a permit for finished bows would pose tremendous administrative burdens for CITES management authorities, likely beyond their capacities, and crucially this would not provide any conservation benefit whatsoever.
The IPCI has set out how leaving the listing at Appendix II can save the species and stringed music industry.
Pau-brasil’s [current] Appendix II listing and annotation provide a framework of regulatory and non-regulatory tools and options that the Parties agreed to in 2022 to support conservation, future sustainable use and controlled trade, while preserving music and culture worldwide. In February 2025, CITES parties took further steps to advance this Appendix II process. An agreed process exists. This work should be sustained. Appendix II enables and enhances protection of the species in the following ways:
- Provides a framework for international co-operation and continued advancement of science, conservation (e.g. the recently announced project to create Brazil’s first pau-brasil seed bank), and reforestation, and will enable the implementation of new global ‘traceability’ initiatives that will prevent illegal activity.
- Permits the regulated and sustainable use of trees grown in agroforestry systems in which species are grown together for mutual shared benefit, e.g. in Bahia where cacao is grown alongside planted pau-brasil.
- Provides flexibility to conserve the species, while protecting domestic livelihoods, trade and music.
I urge you to put pressure on our government department responsible for CITES – DEFRA to seek solutions under Appendix II that can advance conservation and support ongoing cultural activity at the CITES Conference of the Parties in Samarkand, Uzbekistan November 2025.
Yours sincerely,
[Add your name]