Conservation

The State of Conservation

Artifacts

Trees

We use exotic woods in our products. Some of which due to conflicts and other geopolitical issues we may never see again in consumer products. Our wood brokers have spent decades building relationships with reputable buyers, craftsman and wood hunters around the world. Teaching locals that trees have monetary value (only because you and I buy them) help them become conservationists. This awareness at a minimum keeps certain trees on an international watch list which can block export of certain species to try to prevent wholesale destruction. This is probably the only reason certain trees such as Brazilian Rosewood are not extinct today. Without a financial value, there is little or no motivation to protect trees. We pay close attention to international conservation projects and laws that help protect the natural habitat of trees that find their way into our products. We never target particular botanicals in a raw form for our concepts, as it takes years to tell if a cut of a particular botanical has the correct amount of oils and fibers to be properly finished by our local craftsmen.

Animal Hides

Exotic animal hides often raise some eyebrows but exotic leather and skins are an animal product; natural, renewable, and with 90% coming from captive breeding programs and farms worldwide. The exotic leather trade is carefully regulated by international government wildlife departments such as CITES and the U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Fish and Wildlife Bureau. Lujo Concepts does not condone, trade, or do business regarding any endangered species or near-endangered species.

Conservation systems around the world with hundreds of millions of acres help protect endangered animals. We source our elephant hides from conservation projects in Zimbabwe that involve captive breeding programs. Zimbabwe has had an appendix II reservation with CITES since 1997 and can even conduct international trade of raw Ivory due to the effectiveness of their conservation efforts. Illegal poaching is just that, illegal. This is a fight that is won and lost every day. You can draw a similarity here to the exotic woods we use. If people like us that are willing to pay extra for a legal and ethical means of celebrating these majestic creatures suddenly stopped all exportation and turned our backs on conservation efforts then we would see a massive eruption in the amount of poaching around the world. Additionally, conservation promotes education and puts people that have little means in decent paying jobs protecting and looking after these animals. The illegal demand is so great that many of the exotic species we have the pleasure to work with would likely be in great danger without companies like ours and many others that are willing to educate and promote the will of the people to turn a corner on the illegal trade of exotic animals.

We use the byproduct from these hunting reserves in Zimbabwe. In fact, this is the source of all legally traded African elephant skins. These animals are never killed solely for harvesting hides. Unfortunately, some well-meaning lawmakers within the United States seem to work against conservation efforts and just turn a blind eye to what is really working. Because of this we cannot ship elephant to the state of California (CA Penal Code 653o) with respect to California state law.

We encourage you to learn more about the Convention of International Treaty of Endangered Species (CITES).