Well I didn't really read through that thread until now. Looks like you found the same document I did just recently (
Wood identification of Dalbergia nigra (CITES Appendix I) using quantitative wood anatomy, principal components analysis and naïve Bayes classification) - I referred to in yesterday's post in your other thread.
So since nobody can rely on visual identification, we have to take their word(s) for it, which seemingly try hard to say Dalbergia nigra without saying "Dalbergia nigra".
The easiest (well, not really) thing to do would be asking them if they mean D.nigra by that, and if they give you a CITES certificate if you buy one of those guitars.
What I tried to find out is how much CITES restrictions are enforced in Japan, in other words if they even need to hand out a CITES certificate for their guitars, and I failed for the most part. Japan has not "ratified" the CITES treaty, but "accepted" it and I couldn't find out what that means. There is an official
import/export policy that doesn't seem to be different from other countries and in the "World Wildlife Crime Report" I learned that Japan has seized stuff, so apparently they do enforce CITES restrictions. The more I look into this stuff, the more confused I am.
However, in the past days I also learned that the CITES restrictions do not really prevent trading of D. nigra (not terribly surprising), and that occasional seizures seem to show more than anything else how much the trading goes on. In the other thread I linked to a site that says...
"As the
world’s most trafficked wildlife product, rosewoods' value in trade is higher than elephant ivory, rhino horn and tiger parts combined."
I skimmed over the linked report and couldn't find that information though. Sounds reasonable though, who would want to play a guitar made out of tiger parts.
