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By Nancy B. Solomon, AIA

Ever-changing markets

While general demand is on the rise, the interest in and availability of specific species seems to wax and wane. “There are vague cycles,” says Meyerson. For example, certain species are overharvested as time passes, forcing woodcutters to look elsewhere. As a result, continues Meyerson, “species that people did not know about before occasionally come on the market.” In the late 1980s, African anegre was one of the most common sold woods, recalls Meyerson, but his father, who had been in the furniture business since the 1930s, had never heard of it. And at Milan’s International Furniture Fair several years ago, designers became enamored with wenge, also from Africa. “Suddenly, the world wanted wenge, and there has been a steady demand for it since,” says Meyerson.

 

Cesar Pelli chose European ash for the veneer of the lobby paneling inside The Solaire at New York’s Battery Park City. The blonde wood, which received a natural finish, has a strong cross-fire figure that suggests ripples in the sand. Harvested from a temperate French forest, the tree provided a sufficiently large sequence for the project. Photography: © Curtis Ryan Lew/Eastern Millwork & Co.

Sources of mahogany, on the other hand, are drying up. Meyerson argues that this is not because of an actual worldwide shortage in timber stands but because the American species that had been most widely traded (big-leaf mahogany, which grows in Mexico, Central America, and South America) was added to Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) at the end of 2003. An international agreement administered by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), CITES regulates trade of wild animals and plants that are considered endangered to various degrees. Species on Appendix I—including Brazilian rosewood—cannot be traded commercially between countries, while certain products made from species listed on Appendix II require an export permit.

Before such a permit can be authorized, however, the designated scientific authority of that country must be able to verify that the specimen was not obtained illegally and that its export will not be detrimental to the survival of the species. According to Global Trees Campaign (www.globaltrees.org), a partnership between Fauna & Flora International and UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, an international standard for sustainable mahogany management does not currently exist, nor is a system in place to determine whether the export of a particular specimen of mahogany would be harmful. Such a system is currently being developed by the World Conservation Union (www.iucn.org).

There are also cycles in which clients seem to prefer either dark or light. “We have gone through a light-wood cycle for the past 10 or 15 years,” reports Meyerson, “and have recently started going darker.” The International Wood Products Association (www.iwpawood.org), based in Alexandria, Virginia, recently compiled a list of what its members consider to be the most common tropical woods currently being traded in the United States.