African Blackwood
Sustainable forest conservation is underway in the African country of Tanzania. There, we work with local villagers to ensure that the precious trees used to make clarinets and oboes remain with us in future.
![[Main Visual] African Blackwood](images/pict_01.jpg)
African Blackwood
Scientific name: Dalbergia melanoxylon
IUCN Red List Near Threatened
CITES Appendix II Listed Species
In the world of music and musical instruments, this wood is known as “grenadilla,” or African blackwood, and is widely used in manufacturing the bodies of woodwind instruments such as clarinets, oboes, and piccolos. Instrument makers primarily use the heartwood when creating these bodies. With an air-dried density of 1.1 to 1.3 g/cm3, African blackwood is the heaviest and most distinctive of the woods used for musical instruments. As its name suggests, African blackwood has a characteristically black appearance and is often confused with ebony, which is the wood from a variety of Ebenaceae. African blackwood is a variety of Fabaceae rosewood (Dalbergia spp.), which is well known for its use in musical instruments, and its wood has a blackish-purple color that includes the purplish tones typical of rosewood.
These trees are widely distributed throughout southern sub-Saharan Africa, primarily in Tanzania, Mozambique, Senegal, Nigeria, and Kenya. The main lumber production areas are southern Tanzania and northern Mozambique. The African blackwood tree is called “Mpingo” in Swahili, the predominant language of Tanzania, and has been designated as the country’s national tree.
Project Summary
This project promotes resource conservation through participatory forest management in collaboration with a local NGO (Mpingo Conservation & Development Initiative: MCDI) in Tanzania, to make African blackwood a sustainable resource that can be used continuously. Selected to receive support by a range of organizations, such as the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Forestry Agency of Japan, this ongoing project works to conserve resources in cooperation with the local community, and symbolizes our Otonomori activities.
Regions targeted by this project
Lindi Region, Tanzania
FSC certification and community-based forestry
The MCDI and rural villages in the area manage the community forests, and participating communities themselves receive FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certification, which is a global forest certification. At present, the FSC-certified forest covered by the program encompasses approximately 300,000 ha and 16 villages. The villages that receive forest certification harvest the trees in their own forests and allocate the profits they receive from the buyers to public projects for their villages, and to forest management.
Tree growth and main uses
Almost all African blackwood that is harvested as lumber is used in the manufacture of woodwind instruments. As the wood contains many knots caused by branching as well as numerous cracks that form during tree growth, less than 10% of the timber ultimately meets the quality required for woodwind instruments. Many trees in the forest are felled each year in order to produce timber of the quality and the quantity required for musical instruments. African blackwood develops so many knots because, in the forest, it must spread out its branches in all directions to access sunlight. Also, as the tree develops its heavy and hard wood, internal growth stress tends to accumulate within the trunk. The tree trunk often cracks due to damage from frequent forest fires. Although these characteristics are problematic for wood consumers, these are in fact strategies that the tree uses to survive in hostile environments.
Introducing reforestation techniques to preserve resources
Restoring timber resources in the forest depends on the natural regeneration of trees and the rate of tree growth. However, natural regeneration of African blackwood is limited, and even when it occurs, these trees require at least 100 years to mature. Research and development efforts together with the introduction of planting techniques are underway to promote this natural regeneration. A technique called “enrichment planting” is used in gaps where the forest canopy is open, in order to plant seedlings without resorting to clear-cutting or other methods of opening up forest land. This technique is now being used by four villages to plant seedlings on an annual cycle, without the need for maintenance after planting.
WFM, a shaping method for the effective use of wood
Nearly 90% of the African blackwood timber produced is left unused at the sawmill. Through joint research with Kyoto University, Yamaha has developed a method of shaping the timber from African blackwood trees called WFM (Wood Flow Molding). WFM makes it possible to shape African blackwood into three-dimensional forms while preserving its inherent characteristics, regardless of knots or cracks in the original timber. This timber processing technology developed with forests in mind is something only a musical manufacturer like Yamaha could achieve, and transforms wood for which there had previously been no practical use into new musical instruments, while preserving the characteristics of this rare wood.
Social changes in rural villages
This project has brought about a range of changes in rural villages.
Logs harvested in these villages have found buyers, resulting in increased funds being allocated to public works. As a result, essential infrastructure for daily life—such as guesthouses, wells, public toilets, and new community halls—has been developed. In addition, the continuation of tree-planting activities has encouraged more people to nurture trees and to consider forest conservation for the future. Sustaining these efforts may, in itself, serve as a bridge to the future.
