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5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

blog.lostartpress.com

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Re: 5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

#6
In New Zealand, there are old swamplands filled with swamp Kauri. Around a year ago, construction workers found a 16 m (52 ft) long log which had been buried underground for 40,000 years [1]

They used to dig up $200 million worth of timber a year, mostly exported to China, until the government cracked down on exports. It's illegal to export unfinished native timber, so exporters exploited a loophole by cutting the trunks into "tabletops", or adding basic carvings and labelling them as "totem poles", and then shipping the logs to China for further processing.

[1] https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/giant-ngawha-swamp-kauri-log-d...

Re: 5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

#7
Lost Art Press is worth a follow in general. If you’re ever near Cincinnati, I highly recommend checking out their store front. They focus on keeping traditional woodworking books in print, but they also do a lot of woodworking (chair making especially) in their shop.

Re: 5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

#9

In New Zealand, there are old swamplands filled with swamp Kauri. Around a year ago, construction workers found a 16 m (52 ft) long log which had been buried underground for 40,000 years [1] They used to dig up $200 million worth of timber a year, mostly exported to China, until the government cracked down on exports. It's illegal to export unfinished native timber, so exporters exploited a loophole by cutting the tr…

The limits of regulation. There is no way to plug all loopholes.

That said, the added labor ensures a more finished product is exported. Was that the intent, or was the intent to force the wood to stay in NZ?

Re: 5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

#10
post #9

In New Zealand, there are old swamplands filled with swamp Kauri. Around a year ago, construction workers found a 16 m (52 ft) long log which had been buried underground for 40,000 years [1] They used to dig up $200 million worth of timber a year, mostly exported to China, until the government cracked down on exports. It's illegal to export unfinished native timber, so exporters exploited a loophole by cutting the tr…

The limits of regulation. There is no way to plug all loopholes. That said, the added labor ensures a more finished product is exported. Was that the intent, or was the intent to force the wood to stay in NZ?

Certainly the former, but clearly not in the spirit of it. However as long as the tax man got his share maybe that’s all that matters. Presumably the more finished product is taxed higher.
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