How an obscure seed is helping to save the elephant

Onno Heerma van Voss jokes that he never intended to be a
conservationist, but he is helping to save the African elephant.
Numbers of elephants in the wild are still falling; it's estimated
100 of them are killed by poachers every day for their tusks to
meet the continuing demand for ivory.

There are now only around 415,000 African elephants across the
continent, down from as many as five million a century ago,
according to global campaign group WWF (formerly known as the
World Wide Fund for Nature).

While the worldwide sale of new ivory was outlawed in 1989, the
animals are still being slaughtered to fuel an illegal trade led by
continuing demand in China.

So what exactly is Mr Heerma van Voss, a 48-year-old Dutchman,
doing to help protect the African elephant? He sells seeds.

Yes, you read that correctly, but these aren't any old seeds, they
are instead rather special ones from South America called tagua.

They are the off-white coloured seeds of six species of palm
trees. They can reach up to 9cm (3.5 inches) in length and when
dried become very hard indeed. So hard in fact that they are also
known as "vegetable ivory".

And like ivory, tagua can be polished and carved, and turned into
ornate carvings or jewellery.

From his base in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, Mr Heerma van
Voss's company Naya Nayon has been exporting tagua for 16
years, and he says that sales are booming.

He now sells to 70 countries, including China, Japan and
Singapore, as tagua grows in popularity as an alternative to ivory.
And with China pledging to end its domestic trade in elephant
tusks by the end of this year, Mr van Voss is hopeful that
demand is going to jump even further.

Elephant plant

Using tagua as a substitute for ivory is nothing new. Indeed
exports to Europe began in the 19th Century in order to meet the
demand for an ivory-like raw material. This was used to produce
ornamental items such as buttons, chess pieces, and decorative
handles for canes.

In fact, the scientific name for the six species of palm trees that
produce tagua is Phytelephas, which means elephant plant, a nod
to the ivory-like quality of the seeds.

However, tagua fell into obscurity, so much so that Mr Heerma
van Voss had never heard of it when he first visited Ecuador in
2000.

Very much liking the country he decided to stay and set up a a
business, launching Naya Nayon to make and export wooden
furniture. Then a year later he had a phone call.

"In the beginning of 2001, a France-based British lady contacted
me if I could supply hand carved tagua figurines," he says.

"Anyhow, you listen to clients to make a company work. So I did
it, and I started to like the tagua and slowly it took off.

"I always joke that I am a forced ecologist, but I actually really
like this product."

Mr Heerma van Voss now sells $200,000 (£160,000) worth of
tagua per year that he buys from farmers. He and his four
members of staff dry and slice the seeds ready to be turned into
jewellery, with France being his largest market.

The sliced tagua typically retails for $30 a kg, while the raw
seeds sell for $6 a kg. By contrast, a kilogramme of ivory is
worth as much as $1,100 in China.

While Mr Heerma van Voss is preparing for a big upturn in
exports to China, tagua does face two hurdles in the country.
Firstly, even the longest tagua seeds are much shorter than the
average elephant tusk, which limits the size of the ornaments that
can be made from the material. And secondly, it lacks ivory's
exclusivity.

Hongxiang Huang, a Chinese journalist and anti-ivory campaigner,
explains: "As people become wealthier they want to buy luxury
items, and ivory is one of the many things that people desire.
This is the situation in China."

Hairy tale

For buyers wanting an alternative to elephant ivory that still
comes from a mammal but is ethically sourced, the answer
comes from under the frozen Siberian tundra in the north east
of Russia.

It may sound bizarre, but the tusks from woolly mammoths that
died tens of thousands of years ago are mined on a regular
basis. While official figures are not available, an estimated 60
tonnes of mammoth ivory is harvested each year.

Mammoth ivory sold for an average $350 a kg in 2014,

according to the charity Save the Elephants. This is about a third
of the price of elephant ivory, but giant mammoth tusks in good
condition can fetch far more.

John Frederick Walker, an expert on ivory, says: "Master carvers
tend to prefer elephant ivory because fresh elephant ivory is
easier to carve.

"But in fact, you can make wonderful things from mammoth
ivory."

Yet with tagua far easier to get hold of than mammoth ivory, and
considerably cheaper, it is the South American seeds that is
increasingly being used by jewellers, and not the Siberian tusks.
Marion Andron is co-owner of French jewellers Nodova, which
sold more than 300,000 euros ($320,000; £256,000) of tagua
jewellery last year.

Ms Andron, 27, travels to Ecuador twice a year to oversee the
production of the tagua that is done by seven local women at a
cooperative.

While Nodova's largest markets are France and the UK, it sells to
stores across Asia and Ms Andron says that the forthcoming
blanket ban on ivory sales in China offers a huge opportunity.

"I think tagua has helped diminish the demand for animal ivory,
and I honestly don't think someone today can be ignorant about
the slaughter of elephants with all the media coverage," she says.