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All our jewelry is handcrafted in Ecuador. Beautiful and elegant designs you won't find anywhere else.

Bertha mostly works with Tagua Nut.

Basic Information about Tagua

Ivory-nut palms have an extensive distribution along banks of tropical American rivers, from Panama and Colombia to Peru. They are most abundant in the Amazon Basin of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru.

One of the best places to see the beautiful South American ivory-nut palm (Phytelephas aequatorialis), is the Napo River of Ecuador, a major tributary of the Amazon.

It typically grows under large rain forest trees along streams and on wet hillsides. Large pinnate leaves up to 20 feet tall arise from a woody trunk that is often leaning or growing from a longer horizontal trunk above the moist ground.

Like cottonwoods, willows, marijuana and people, ivory-nut palms are dioecious, with separate male and female individuals. Female palms bear clusters of large, brown fruits, the size of grapefruits or melons. Each fruit is studded with numerous woody, pointed horns and contains four or more large seeds. The seeds have an outer shell (seed coat) and a large white endosperm. Called "taguas" by local Indians of the Napo River, the endosperm of immature seeds is pulpy and sweet--food for people and animals of the region. Mature, dry seeds are so hard that it requires a hacksaw to cut one in half.

The white, dried endosperm inside the seeds of ivory-nut palms contains a substance called hemicellulose that becomes so hard and dense that it can be carved and polished like elephant tusks.

Ecological advantages

During the past three decades, poachers in search of ivory tusks have decimated large populations of African elephants, some by as much as 50 percent. Bans on international trade of elephant ivory have discouraged the slaughter of elephants, but the demand for polished ivory has pushed the world's largest living land animal to the brink of extinction.

The tagua nut also known as Vegetable Ivory is alternative to Ivory. Comming from a Palm tree found in South American Rainforests, it is a glimmer of hope to both the Rain Forest it hales from and the African Elephants.

No artificial plastic can take its place; however, vegetable ivory is a very desirable substitute. Like elephant ivory, it is completely natural and it comes from a marvelous wild creature. Unlike elephants which must die for their precious ivory, tagua palms are a renewable resource; as long as their native habitat is preserved and sufficient seeds are left to perpetuate the palms. A single female tagua palm may produce up to 50 pounds of nuts in a year, that's roughly the amount of ivory in an average African elephant tusk. The elephant, however, yields its ivory only once while the palm produces nuts year after year.

Another ecological incentive for using vegetable ivory is that renewed trade in tagua nuts could help protect endangered rain forests in Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. According to a Massachusetts-based environmental group called Cultural Survival, natural rain forest products such as vegetable ivory can generate up to five times the income of banana plantations and cattle ranches.


All Items will be shipped the business day after payment is received. If you would like your shipment to be insured there will be an extra $2 charge per package.

Female

Favorite Materials

Tagua, wood, acrylic