Nesting Set of 3 Heart Banana Bark Boxes

Large 6.5" diameter x 2.25" high

Medium 5" diameter x 2" high

Small 3.5" diameter x 1.25" high

Women in the province of Chapare in Bolivia utilize a natural, renewable resource - banana bark - to create these beautiful boxes. Your support for this project provides an alternative income to coca cultivation.

Designs on the boxes will vary according to the desires of the artisan.

Banana plants are not trees, but are probably the world's fastest growing herb, related to the lily and orchid families. Banana plants grow to about 30 to 40 feet in just 9 months. After they produce the bananas, the plant dies all the way back to the root again, and a new sprout is sent out to continue the process. They continue to produce new tree-like trunks generation after generation for decades.

This trunk regeneration makes bananas a wonderful natural resource. In the proper management of banana plants, the trunks are cut down after each harvest and buried near the live root as a sort of compost. This is when people take the bark and use it for crafts.