San Francisco-based SoundWood project is created by the world's oldest environmental conservation group Fauna & Flora International, and is collaborating with musicians and instrument makers to develop programs to preserve and sustain the earth's forests in connection with the crafting of musical instruments. They have provided some facts:

•Almost half of the original forest cover on earth, over 7.4 billion acres, is gone because humans have destroyed it. Forest loss between 1980 and 1995 was at least 500 million acres, an area the size of Mexico.

•Each year, at least another 40 million acres of natural forest, an area the size of Washington State, is lost in developing countries such as Brazil, Bolivia, and Madagascar.

•Tropical woods like mahogany, rosewood and ebony do not grow in stands, but grow independent with other trees in the rain forest. To get these prized trees, loggers often clear an entire area. Another way to get these trees is to create openings or roadways into the forest. Once the road is there, other logging operations move in and massive degradation occurs.