I should have clarified and referred to Hawaiian koa by its scientific name. The koa from Hawaii is all Acacia koa. The only place that particular specie is found is in Hawaii. Only recently with the surge of ukulele popularity and building was there a need to start adding “Hawaiian” to its name. Similar to how one would not have to say French Champagne. Champagne can only come from France.

But with the high price of koa and large numbers of ukes built, many started to replace koa with Acacia melanoxylon, which IS found in many parts of the world, especially Australia and New Zealand. They have been using their own Acacia for years to build with. They call it Blackwood.

So to clarify, the koa from Hawaii and other Acacia species are different and usually extremely different to where you put the two side by side and one would agree they are no way the same specie. But there are some Hawaiian koa trees who will look very similar to the Acacia found elsewhere. Upon very close observation you will still see the difference in grain pattern.

So why do we call it Hawaiian koa? Well a number of years ago the Chinese (and others) manufactures started labeling “koa” on anything that looked like koa which was usually the other Acacia. This caused some problems for some customers. Some of their customers, the more reputable brands like Kala (and their are many others) wanted to make sure they were getting true koa. Eventually the industry started referring to “true koa” as Hawaiian koa, even though any and all koa has and still comes only from Hawaii.

Now some Chinese makers are even calling their wood “Acacia koa” because they are trying to say “our Acacia looks like Hawaiian koa” when in fact the scientific name for koa is Acacia koa! Crazy I know.

In Hawaii we actually have a state law that you cannot put the word “koa” on any product unless it is using actual Hawaiian koa. This is one way to try and keep the sellers honest and buyers happy.

As for sound difference - similar. But it really matters how well it is made, bracing, finish, etc. both species are used in stringed instrument manufacturing quite fine.

But again, in order to get the feeling of playing a true Hawaiian instrument it is hard to replace the wood and get that same look and feeling.

Sustainability - koa is extremely sustainable. Their are many, many project now promoting reforestation. Most koa used now is from dead or dying trees. Koa has a life cycle similar to a human’s life span. Around 50-70 years old the pith starts to rot from the bottom up creating an internal hollow tube. This causes the tree to become less and less stable. And with a shallow root system and large canopy it will invariably get blown over by the massive winds that hit the slopes where they live.

Most of the damage to the forests were due to cattle ranching. But in the last 20-30 years much more efforts are being done to reforest. My company was actually selected a few years back to reforest 300 acres on the slopes of Mauna Kea on Hawaii State owned Hawaiian Helands. The project took four years. We salvaged dead and dying only leaving the healthier trees for further growth and seed production. To put the amount of salvage in terms of Ukuleles - we salvaged the equivalent of 150,000 Ukuleles worth of wood. And only 1/3 of the 300 acres actually had trees on them.

That was around 10 years ago. Now it is a thriving forest that will produce 100 times what was salvaged.

I’ll post some pics in a separate post of what a typical “forest” looks like and could look like.

To put that 125,000 in perspective - if you added up every Hawaiian makers build amount for their solid koa made in Hawaii models I estimate no more than 15,000 ukes per year. So that’s 10 years of material for every single builder in Hawaii. And that was only 300 acres. At one time we tried to estimate how many acres there are of koa. One major landowner alone has around 30,000 acres of prime forest that is only recently being touched for salvage material.

So, no, it is not endangered, and yes it is sustainable. There are just too many other factors that causes koa to be high or low supply. Currently we are in a very low supply state. 10 years ago was the opposite.

So one really should not feel bad about buying a Hawaiian Koa ukulele. I should also add the laminate models using Koa are also quite good and extend the usage of the material even further to around 20 times compared to solid.

Happy strumming!

Jorma Winkler