You know, Henry Ford did the same thing with his cars that Taylor is doing. He tried to own as many of the resource extraction companies as possible. In the 20's, he created his own town in Brazil called Fordlandia that was all about refining the rubber extraction process. It became a disaster for a lot of reasons and he lost millions of dollars. I've read a lot about the history of that place and the stories about dealing with workers, paying them well and providing safe working conditions are interesting and important when trying to understand all of the contingencies when we consume these kinds of commodities. That aside, Is what Bob Taylor doing about being environmentally conscientious or is it strictly business? It's both. When the business is the wood then it has to be. It would've been great if he actually talked about the extraction process even more. For sure he has ecologists and botanists on his payroll that have forecasted all of this stuff for him. I'm curious what an Ebony tree needs to grow. Taylor should have a map of the world where Ebony can be naturally harvested. And why can't they be farm raised? Maybe investing in that kind of infrastructure is way more costly than paying villagers in Cameroon. But who knows, maybe in the future there will be a Taylorland somewhere in Africa - where stands of Ebony trees grow strong, and children with guns guard it.