Eco-Friendly Jewelry: Sustainable Tagua Nuts are Hitting the Green Scene

I first came across a tagua nut while browsing in a bead shop last year. A big sign read "vegetable ivory" and "helps preserve the rainforest". Of course that piqued my attention! What was this tagua nut, why were they calling it vegetable ivory, and how come I had never heard of it before?

It turns out that tagua nut trees grow in Central and South America. It takes about 15 years before they will begin producing a harvest of tagua nuts, but then they will continue producing for a century and more. By harvesting the tagua nuts and creating consumer products from them, the survival of these tracts of rainforests is guaranteed. You see, as long as money can be made from standing trees, then it makes sense to leave them standing (instead of cutting them down for lumber, which has only short-term economic gain).

Local villagers are able to support their families by creating a tagua nut trade. Additionally, these curious nuts have been called "vegetable ivory" for their usefulness in replacing the extremely detrimental elephant ivory for the manufacture of small objects such as sculptures and pendants. A very sustainable discovery!

Not only are the tagua nuts eco-friendly and sustainable, but they are also gorgeous. You can see in the photo above that the tagua nut contains natural swirls of color, rendering every slice totally unique. They also can be sliced into thin chips and dyed various colors.

You can learn more about the tagua nut and see some beautiful necklaces here.

Comments

[Linda Garrould]

There is a new range of fair trade jewellery in the UK made from the tagua nut called Taguabella. I wrote a short article a few weeks ago to help launch this important fair trade range to my fair trade customers. The people behind the Taguabella range are also responsible for the Kazuri fair trade beads which have been very popular. My article which includes pictures of the jewellery can be found at http://www.iadoreyour.com/gstore/Taguabella-Jewellery-Information.php

[Mzuribeads]

Great Blog. If you like the recycled ideas check us out!

Mzuribeads present a collection of Jewelry and Loose Beads all handmade by a group of jewelers who live in Kampala, Uganda. The jewelers are paid a fair wage for all of their products. Mzuribeads is an ethical business exporting Recycled Ugandan Paper Beads and Jewelry to wholesale and retail customers throughout the world.

The beads are rolled from individual triangular strips of recycled magazine and poster pages. There is NO PAINT involved. The colour of the bead and jewellery is determined from the actually paper chosen by the artist. The beads are given several coats of varnish, to leave them with a glossy and waterproof finish. For a detailed demonstration on how to roll please visit our website.

www.mzuribeads.com

Here you can also purchase our beads and jewelry online, or find a stockist or event near you.

Thank you, Kirstie

[silver bracelet]

I like your idea. eco-friendly jewelery is a better idea for fashion design.

[Ahmed B.]

Great blog! 'Silver Bracelet' you are right.
You know after travelling to colombia and finding out about tagua jewellery i started searching precisely for a fashion designer that focused on the tagua bead.

My website, www.FaridasPassions.com (FP), specialises in offering hard to find products - preferably handmade or eco friendly or both. Some products i design myself while other products are offered by exclusively selected brands or designers. The last Brand that joined is 'muichic' who produces colourful tagua jewellery in many different shapes - finally i am able to offer eco friendly fashion jewellery to my customers.

I can now offer visitors the opportunity to buy handmade oriental chic products with handmade green chic tagua products.

Special offers and 20% Discount!
on exclusive FP products, bundle them up with muichic pure tagua jewellery sets(earrings, bracelet, necklace and ring) for quite a unique look.

Once again thanks for the blog

Sincerely,
Ahmed B.
www.faridaspassions.com

[EcuadorianHands]

TAGUA ECUADOR also known as Vegetable Ivory, corozo, or Exotic Ivory, is the dried and polished nuts of several South American palms. Tagua is remarkably similar to animal ivory in both looks and feel. Tagua is durable and easily carved, and it even mimics the porosity of animal ivory. The biggest difference: Elephant do not have to die. Evidently those similarities were not lost on early botanists who named the palm genus Phytelephas-"elephant plant." Versatility is only one of Tagua virtues. It is also infinitely renewable. In a single year, a female Tagua tree can produce 20 pounds of tagua nuts - that's about the amount of ivory on an average female elephant. The elephant, however, yields its ivory only once; the tree continues producing nuts year after year. The idea of using palm nuts as type of ersatz ivory is hardly new; it goes back more than 100 years. In 1865, a ship sailing from South America to Germany used a load of Tagua nuts as ballast. When the vessel docked in Hamburg, curious stevedores began playing with the Tagua and noticed its ivory like characteristics. Tagua quickly became one of Ecuador 's leading exports to Europe. Craftsmen used the nuts to fashion handmade decor pieces and souvenir handicrafts, from tagua chess pieces, tagua figures for decoration, to tagua buttons and tagua umbrella handles. In the early part of this century, Colombia and Ecuador were exporting some 40,000 tons of the material annually to the United States and Europe. After the World War II, competition from an inexpensive new synthetic called plastic wipes out the Tagua trade. Now that the world is waking up to the growing environmental problems which face our planet today and that environmental concerns are getting higher on the world's agenda that ever before, the use of Tagua is getting renewed. Commerce in vegetable ivory decor is helping foster respect for Rain Forests in Ecuador, and it is doing so through the nondestructive exploitation of a renewable resource.

TAGUA IS NOT ONLY USEFUL FOR MAKING BEADED JEWERLY, BUT ALSO IT SAVES ELEPHANTS AND RAIN FORESTS.