Banditman wrote
X-Rated Bob made another good one. There's many a wealthy collector/player/buyer who wants a guitar to a certain build spec and doesn't care less about the source of the wood. That's simple greedy human nature, which says "Yes there's hardly any left but I want one; so they should clamp down after I get mine".
It's not just about the wealthy collectors. Guitars have been built from certain woods for some time now, and the woods effect the tone - or are perceived to. So it's hard for acoustic makers, for example, to get away from classic top and tone woods. There's more variety now, but see my earlier example: Martin buyers mostly want the classic Martin sound, and telling them that they can get it if the tops are made of (thumbsuck examples) bamboo or Idonesian bongo-bongo wood isn't going to fly. So they keep on using spruce. So will Larrivee, so (mostly) will Taylor, so will Santa Cruz and (mostly) Cort, Yamaha and everybody else. I'm saying "mostly" because cedar is more accepted for steel string flat tops these days, but that will come under pressure too and it's been used in classical guitars for a long time. Electric players like those maple flame tops and figuring in the necks and, too, like certain woods for tone and for appearance.
I'm not trying to make anybody feel guilty. I have two very nice acoustics with solid Sitka Spruce tops. I've played a couple of nice cedar topped guitars, but, as in my example above, I'm going to take some convincing that other woods will do the job. OK... Redwood sounds pretty good, but there's a problem right there.
The other reason those woods get used a lot is because they're strong enough for the job. Spruce is very strong along the grain and has a very good strength/weight ratio. Just to show that what we're talking about is not new, huge swaths of spruce in North America got wiped out in the 20s and 30s when airplanes had wood frames - spruce was the wood of choice. Consequently Adirondack spruce especially (and that is THE classic Martin top wood that they used on the famed pre-war guitars) is not nearly as plentiful as it once was.
So luthiers are going to keep on using the same woods, buyers are going to want the same woods, and so it will go.
I do think we need to be not too fast to get accusatory. You see Brazilian rosewood on new guitars still, though not often. Now that's a very endangered and very strongly protected wood, but every now and then somebody gets hold of, say, an old church pew that was made before the rinderpest from Brazilian and they can get clearance to use that (there's some top notch Brazilian rosewood on display in Sammy Marks house near Pretoria - it was used for high class cupboards and sideboards back in the day).
