https://www.reidys.com/blog/rosewood-no-more-fender-cites-1901/
Gasp! I feel less shocked after reading the article though–at least they’re replacing it with something similar. And at least I’ve already got my strat with a rosewood fingerboard that will hopefully last me many years.
I’ve always been a maple fan, but I’m sure their replacement will be every bit as nice. Maple feels a little smoother to me, but frankly I’m just a big fan of seeing the neck bruise from using it a lot. I think a rosewood fingerboard will hold up pretty much forever if you keep the frets in good condition, or at least that’s the impression you get from people buying 59 Strats for $25,000.
I tried to post this last night, but the IRD site froze up on me. Very strange.
The article seems to lump “fingerboard” in with “neck”. One of the pictures does look like a guitar neck and headstock with rather dark wood, but I have never seen or heard of a guitar neck being made completely out of rosewood; just the fingerboard/fretboard.
Anyway, as I have been pointing out in another thread, depletion of resources can end up being a big bummer - for both the earth and humans. Interesting info on the CITES link, though a bit confusing:
The reason for the billion-dollar demand for rosewood - and the subsequent trafficking - has less to do with musical instruments and much more to do with furniture.
In particular, China’s high-end furniture market created enormous demand that led to severe deforestation of several Dalbergia species in Thailand, Vietnam, and several other countries.
Not all Dalbergia species are threatened by the furniture boom. But rather than train border officials across the world how to identify the nuanced differences between them - something that even experts struggle with at times - the participants of the CITES conference decided to create a blanket regulation on the entire genus of Dalbergia wood.
What This Will Look Like In Reality
The number of musical instruments containing some amount of rosewood, cocobolo, bubinga or kosso that cross international borders each day is staggering.
If the musical instruments crossing borders is “staggering”, is the furniture usage “ultra-staggering” by comparison? And didn’t China ever hear about IKEA? 
In China it is a major loss of face to furnish one’s apartment in Ikea garbage.
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Ah yes, cultural differences. Hmmm … Come to think of it there may be a major loss of face for anyone to own Ikea garbage. 
I was just trying to think of the environment.
The article link leads me to a 404 page.
Interesting! I wonder if fender made them pull the article?
Maybe China complained it was hurting their furniture market. 
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I think the environment is also not a winner when it comes to Ikea. 
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This is a Hoax
Based on? Gibson has already been introducing artificial products for some of their fingerboards for the last couple years!
The original story was gone and I was seeing stuff about it being a hoax like:
Today is not April fools, it’s Earth Day so good story for that.
Interesting. I’ll have to dig a little deeper. Good catch!