HerbalEGram: Volume 5, Number 4, April 2008

The African Blackwood Conservation Project (ABCP) is an organization focused on the re-planting of African Blackwood (Dalbergia melanoxylon), or mpingo as it is locally known in Tanzania in the KiSwahili language.¹ It was co-founded in 1996 by James Harris, a Texas woodworker and Sebastian Chuwa, a botanist from Tanzania.² The wood of these trees is regularly used to create woodwind instruments such as clarinets, oboes, flutes, and bagpipes.³ Though this tree is currently included on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Endangered Species as “lower risk/near threatened,”⁴ blackwood is in danger of being over-harvested, which could lead to its eventual commercial extinction.

Mpingo’s Extinct Predecessor
The reason ABCP thinks this, is that it has happened before. Around 1900 another tree used to make woodwind instruments became “economically extinct.” That is, it was no longer accessible in the quantity or quality to fulfill commercial demand. Cocoswood (Brya ebenus) used to be the “wood of choice”³ for woodwinds, and though it still grows in the Caribbean islands, it is rare and no longer a useable source for instruments, according to James Harris, ABCP director (e-mail April 4, 2008).

Why Mpingo?
Mpingo is a highly dense wood and oily in nature. These properties make it ideal for instruments that are subject to moisture generated by human breath, and also make it less likely to chip or tear when milled by a machine, according to Harris. Also, “the best players seem to prefer an all natural-wood instrument. The ‘feel’ and warmth of wood in the hands of the player is a very important component of the music produced and cannot be scientifically quantified,” said Harris.

Harris himself has a high appreciation for the many uses of wood, being an ornamental turner, which is, according to him, a kind of woodturning that involves the geometric decoration of the finished products. He creates ornate boxes, perfume bottles, and other hollow wood pieces. He said he uses blackwood in some of his products in small quantities for ornamental effect since it takes a brilliant polish and produces a brilliant surface.

Examples of his use of mpingo can be found at http://www.ornamentalturner.com/. Since his company is small, Harris uses very little wood, but through ABCP he has helped fund the replanting of over 200,000 mpingo trees since 1996. The organization also had a milestone in 2004 when it reached 1 million trees replanted, including several species besides mpingo.²

What Tree is Next?
If mpingo commercially goes the way of the dodo, there is another tree that could be harvested, and perhaps over-harvested, in its place. There have been other African trees experimented on to see how they would fair as mpingo replacements. According to Harris, mopane or mopani (Colophospermum mopane) is almost as dense as mpingo, though it lacks its special oiliness.

“The results seem adequate,” said Harris. “But as far as we know, they do not exist in overly large numbers, and if they were to replace mpingo, they would likely have a limited duration of commercial utility as well,” he explained, “in the sense that mopane, or any hardwood species that is slow-growing, thus taking generations to mature, will begin to decrease in availability if used commercially without sustainable harvesting methods or replanting programs for its continuation.”

In addition, a mopane instrument would have a different intonation than an mpingo instrument to the trained ear, and this would no doubt bother many musicians. “Were it not so, all woodwinds could be made of plastic, as it is a durable material and much less expensive than wood as the raw material for woodwind instruments,” said Harris. “But only beginner's instruments are so made."

The Medicinal Uses of Mpingo
Another issue is that mpingo is also well known throughout Africa for the many medicinal remedies made from its barks, leaves, and roots. According to Harris, the roots are used to treat abdominal pain, hernia, intestinal parasites, gonorrhea, headache, rhinitis, and bronchitis. The bark is used as an antidiarrheic or antibacterial. The leaves may treat throat inflammations, heat problems, syphilis, gonorrhea, and dysentery. The shavings of the heartwood mixed with lotions are used to treat skin diseases. And in Kenya the tree has actually been over-exploited for its use in curing coughs and stomach pain, said Harris. These medicinal benefits would likewise be a great loss if the replanting of the tree isn’t tended to.

More information about conserving this valuable resource, and donation information, is available at the ABCP Web site: http://www.blackwoodconservation.org/ as well as the Mingo Conservation Project (MCP) Web site: www.mpingoconservation.org/about.html, another organization concerned with this goal.

—Kelly E. Saxton

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