Who We Are: Our membership is diverse: musicians, music lovers, teachers, violinmakers and conservationists have joined our ranks. Roughly one-third are bow makers, artisans who are carrying out a craft passed on from master to apprentice for centuries. Working with hand tools such as tiny planes, knives and chisels, they make the bows used by professional players of stringed musical instruments.

Our Mission: The precious pernambuco wood that has enabled our craft for so long is now endangered in many areas of its Brazilian range. Although massive deforestation is largely to blame for pernambuco's demise, we acknowledge a responsibility for our resource and recognize the pressing need to restore it. We ask our membership to engage in a moratorium on any new wood purchases until the inventories now taking place are completed and the conservation plans actualized. A great majority of the bow makers working today are members of IPCI-USA and support this cause. Fortunately in Brazil there is also recognition of the importance of saving pernambuco's habitat, the Atlantic Forest or Mata Atlantica. We work in partnership with Brazilian institutions and our European counterparts, IPCI-Comurnat and IPCI-Germany to carry out inventories, research, propagation, replanting and educational outreach in the Mata Atlantica region. In addition, we are researching other, possibly more abundant wood species that can provide alternatives to pernambuco wood.