"Carl thanks for bringing this up.  It is important that designers, builders or any users of ANY species be aware of how it was sourced.  I think you will find that there are some highly sustainable forestry initiatives going on in Africa.  In fact we have a much better line of sight into the silvicultural practices as well as chain of custody documentation all the way back to the stump.  Certification and validation schemes like TLTV and VLO provide outstanding oversight (in my opinion the best in the world) so that importers can be certain they are doing business with good sawmills from legal concessions using sustainable harvestry practices.  Sapele is not a CITES listed species so it can be imported easily, but Lacey is most concerned with local regulations at the point of harvest so the importer needs to do their due diligence to be certain that the lumber comes from an approved concession and the appropriate amount of transformation is done in country.All that being said, I would urge anyone considering buying lumber of any species to ask questions about its origin.  The chain of custody is well documented (in accordance with the Lacey Act) so anyone can trace back to a verifiable and sustainable mill.  It is these businesses that are taking the most care of the resource and in order to protect these species we need to keep the market alive by buying them.  If the resource loses its value then the companies that take great pains to manage them will disappear.So yes, think twice before buying and species if you don't know where it came from.  But ask questions and you might be surprised at how sustainable the silviculture is."