Non-profit group REVERB is working with the Barenaked Ladies' 2013 Last Summer on Earth tour with Guster and Ben Folds Five through July 30 to educate music fans about illegal logging and the music industry. REVERB works to make music tours more eco-friendly, providing local food, green energy and education for the musicians and their fans.
Fans learn about illegal logging and the Lacey Act along with other issues at the tour's Eco-Village with the help of the Environmental Investigation Agency and the Sierra Club.
In 2012 Gibson Guitar Company incurred penalties totaling a minimum of $600,000, including the forfeiture of wood taken from the protected forests of Madagascar, for importing illegal wood into the U.S. in violation of the Lacey Act. Last month the U.S. Department of Agriculture submitted a report to Congress regarding the carrying out of the amendment, effectively removing musical instruments from the equation. This protects musicians carrying vintage or new instruments made from protected materials. However, REVERB still wants musicians and their fans to be aware of the sourcing issues in the industry.
"As musicians, it's important for us to know where the wood in our guitars, drumsticks, and other instruments comes from-and whether it got here legally," Adam Gardner, guitarist and vocalist of the band Guster and co-founder of REVERB, said in a statement. "Our music is meant to bring people together, and that includes everyone from our fans who listen to our music to the workers who made our instruments to the communities who live in the forests where the wood comes from."
Gardner recently wrote an op-ed for The Tennessean about REVERB's dedication to using instruments made from responsibly sourced wood.
