In our increasingly digital world, technology and environmentalists collide. More and more companies and NGO’s are helping to bring illegal logging to a halt. How? Tree Tagging. Tree tagging is the process of identifying a tree once taken from a forest and gives the ability to track it through the supply chain. It has become illegal to import/export some species of timber without necessary documents.  So where does technology play a role in this endeavor? Earth Observation, provider of forest and marine monitoring solutions, created a smartphone APP traceability system, designed to help governments and industry remove illegally logged tropical hardwood from the global supply chain. This company is a team of passionate activists, engineers, and scientists working to create conscious consumption.

In this journey to tag the first tree digitally, Tom Bedell of Bedell Guitars, was able to come along with Andrew Dudley of TreeTag to witness and support the first test run of the BETA app. In March 2015 TreeTag, regional forest management companies, sustainable harvest experts, and Bedell Guitars traveled to Guatemala to enter the very first tree- a specimen of Caoba, a type of rich mahogany vital to the region. This beautiful mahogany tree was given a special code based on species, time, date, and physical location, which was entered into the Tree Tag Generator app and can now be tracked as it moves through the supply chain. With this tracking app Bedell Guitars is allowing customers to track their products back to where the tree originates, to the logger that felled the tree, and to the parent tree itself.

This technology is a huge benefit for forests in every region. It enhances the value chain with the digital traceability. This app allows foreign suppliers and customers in the US/EU to easily adhere to legislation, which puts the onus on businesses in validation parentage of materials. This digital tracing also makes it difficult to defraud the government with a bribe, a rubber stamp, and a turned head.  We now live in an era where it’s no longer acceptable to turn your head or push deniability when it concerns the traceability of precious raw materials.

Bedell Guitars is part of a revolution, a revolution to conscious consumption. Follow us down the path of sustainability because if we cannot learn to sustain our environment then we cannot sustain ourselves. Welcome to the Seed to Song Journey – doing the right thing never sounded better.