A message from Joe Lamond, President and CEO of NAMM

Music Products Association CEO responds to musicians’ concerns about illegal logging

The craftsmen who make and sell musical instruments as well as the artists who use them, have a common goal of protecting the world’s forests and promoting a sustainable supply of materials to build instruments for current and future generations of musicians.

NAMM supports the passage of the legislation to ensure that musical instruments made before the 2008 amendment to the law, that added plant material to the list of protected species, will not be seized from innocent owners. This at the same time fulfills the music product industry’s mutual goal of long-term protection for the world’s precious natural resources.

We urge all musicians to make the effort to be fully informed on the facts at www.namm.org/publicaffairs. We believe that bipartisan passage of legislation that remedies the unintended consequences of the current law will do more to reduce illegal logging and protect natural resources than leaving the Bill in its current ambiguous form.

Together, we can ensure that all new musical instruments are made with legally harvested, renewable natural resources and at the same time make sure a guitar crafted 50 years ago can still be legally transported and played in concert halls around the world.