The Tagua nut grows in the South American rainforest from Panama to Ecuador in a beautiful palm tree also known  as "Phyletephas aequatoriales" also known as the ivory nut palm. 

The resemblance of the nut in grain, color and texture with the elephant ivory is so close that the nut is a substitute for ivory carvings and the cruel poaching of elephants.

The vegetable ivory palm has been important for indigenous people in the Amazon, since the beginning of times. They use the nut in the making of handicrafts,  the leaves of the palm to build roofs and its fresh edible gelatinous sweet content as food.

In the present, with the alarmant rate of destruction of the Amazon rainforests in the search of gas, gold and other minerals, and the clearing of rainforest land to be used as cattle pasture, the economic value of preserving the tagua nut  indigenous palms in the rainforest has become of vital importance for the preservation of our planet against climate change.

According to professor Amstrong of Palomar College in San Diego, CA,  the destruction of the rainforests in Central and South America amounts to about 50 acres per minute. That means a rainforest of the size of Virginia state, dissapears every year.

Fortunately, tagua nut economy can change this trend, according with the Environmental group Cultural Survival, natural rainforest products, such vegetagle ivory can generate up to five times the income of a banana plantation and cattle ranches.

That is why since 2009,  when I discovered the nut, I have been so passionately in love with this medium that can change the course of story. Why search for gold and contaminate the Amazon river when the tagua nut is the real gem of the rainforest?

Preserving the rainforest, one design at a time, has been my mission since the moment I started my journey as ecodesigner and business woman, because fashion can not be divorced from community and environment involvement.

Become a rainforest guardian by choosing  fashion with purpose, welcome the tagua nut, the true pearl of the rainforest to your accessories collection and bring color & happiness into your life.