Tague can be turned into billiard balls.
Tagua is a form of vegetable ivory collected from ivory palm trees in South America. It is considered a sustainable alternative to animal-based ivory, and the responsible cultivation and harvesting of tagua can also help conserve the rainforest in South America. Like true ivory, tagua is dense and creamy yellow in color and can be carved and worked into buttons, traditional crafts, billiard balls, musical instrument parts, and other things traditionally made from ivory.
Tagua is grown in the rainforest in many places.
The formal name for the South American ivory palm is Phytelephas aequatorialis, and the palms thrive between Paraguay and Panama. An adult tagua tree can reach 20 meters in height and will produce several very large, gnarled wooden fruits. When the fruit splits open, it reveals several chicken-egg sized tagua nuts, the seeds of the tree. Tagua seeds can be grown into seedlings to perpetuate trees, or carved into ivory plant products. In small South American communities, tagua can provide a valuable economic and cultural service, providing people with a source of income that allows them to live a traditional lifestyle.
Tagua is a form of vegetable ivory collected from ivory palm trees in South America.
In South America, various rainforest conservation initiatives have harnessed the economic value of tagua. Tree cultivation and sustainable harvesting are encouraged; In many places, tagua is grown in a jungle environment, rather than a plantation, and the seeds are harvested naturally as they fall to the ground, so the tree is not traumatized by climbing. This allows the tagua trees to provide valuable habitat for rainforest animals and also aids in rainforest conservation, because rainforest is more valuable standing than it is cut. Keeping the rainforest intact allows scientists to explore it, catalog new species of plants and animals, and find other plants with potential economic, medical, and decorative uses for humans.
Some see the tagua as a way to prevent elephants from being poached for their ivory.
Like other forms of vegetable ivory, tagua is virtually indistinguishable from true ivory. People who care about elephants also support tagua plantations in the hope that vegetable ivory can completely replace elephant ivory. Although elephants have been dangerously outnumbered, tagua thrives in much of South America and is also considered a renewable resource because the tree does not need to be killed to gain access to ivory. Thus, the tagua can serve two functions: to help save the incredibly rare and diverse environment of the rainforest, and to help conserve the elephants.