Abstract
This article aims to make visible the relationship between the exploitation of tonewoods in the Global South and the acquisition strategy of stringed musical instruments rubbed and pulsed for El Sistema Nacional de Coros y Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela (from now on, El Sistema) since 2007. This is the period in which this programme began to receive a great deal of national and international funding, with a view to including one million youngsters in the programme by 2019. The nature of this study is documentary, as it involves the application of content analysis to the acquisition plans of Fundamusical (the El Sistema's governing body). In addition, a correlation was made between this strategy for the acquisition of musical instruments and the information provided by environmentalists who demand an unprecedented deforestation in the Global South, in which Chinese companies position themselves as the world's leading importers of musical instruments and importers of tonewoods. Finally, it is evident that behind the rhetoric of social welfare, scenarios of environmental injustice continue to be reproduced to supply instruments to El Sistema. The decolonization of such practices must incorporate an ecological epistemology that allows us to trace the reciprocal influence between the Cartesian anthropocentric vision of music education and its impact on the current socio-environmental crisis.