[The company, which is no longer affiliated to Yahoo in the United States, said the decision came after consultations with Traffic, a group that monitors illegal wildlife trade and its sister organization, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF). Press officer Yoshinari Kaji said ivory had been sent to China and detected by customs authorities there.]
By Simon Denyer
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Pieces
of ivory for making hanko, or carved name seals, at a factory in Tokyo in
November 2016.
Japan is the world’s largest legal market for
ivory. (Issei Kato/Reuters)
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Yahoo Japan said it
made the decision after confirming multiple reports that ivory bought on its
online auction site was “smuggled abroad and detected by foreign customs
authorities,” in contravention of international rules banning cross-border
trade.
The company, which
is no longer affiliated to Yahoo in the United States, said the decision came
after consultations with Traffic, a group that monitors illegal wildlife trade
and its sister organization, the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF). Press
officer Yoshinari Kaji said ivory had been sent to China and detected by
customs authorities there.
“The company’s
decision to ban all ivory from its platforms takes full consideration of the
elevated risks in continuing such a practice,” Ryuji Tsutsui, CEO of WWF Japan,
said in a statement. “We welcome this critical step taken by Yahoo! Japan to
align themselves with the global efforts to combat illegal wildlife trade
online.”
Many of Yahoo
Japan’s competitors already have such bans in place, with Rakuten and Mercari
taking the step in 2017 and GMO Pepabo following suit earlier this year.
After China banned
the ivory trade at the end of 2017, Japan became the largest legal market for
ivory, driven by demand for hankos: the personal seals that Japanese people use
in place of signatures for anything from opening a bank account to signing an
employment contract.
[Japan is still
hungry for ivory. The reason is a personal stamp called a hanko.]
Many African
elephant range states have joined wildlife groups in pleading with Japan and the
European Union to close down their domestic ivory markets, arguing that they
contribute to illegal cross-border ivory trading and, ultimately, to elephant
poaching. But Japan’s government insists all the ivory in the country was
purchased when international trade was legal.
A Traffic study
released in 2018 identified Yahoo Japan as the single-biggest online platform
for elephant ivory sales in Japan, with 4,414 ivory items and 35 whole tusks
worth more than $340,000 sold over a four-week period in June and July 2018. It
said its research revealed a lack of effective regulation over online trade and
evidence of illegal international trade.
The Environmental
Investigation Agency also has documented persistent loopholes in Japan’s
domestic ivory controls that facilitate illegal trade.
Wildlife groups say
Japan’s poorly regulated market and lack of effective controls at its borders
represent an easy target for ivory poachers to smuggle and launder tusks.
Although China has
tightened customs checks since banning the ivory trade, wildlife groups say
poached ivory is still making its way there.
“WWF hopes Yahoo! Japan’s
proactive step will encourage the Japanese government to look critically at the
country’s domestic market and its influence on international illegal trade,”
Margaret Kinnaird, WWF Wildlife Practice Leader, said in a statement.
“WWF’s consumer
research reveals Chinese overseas travelers are persistent buyers of ivory even
after the domestic ivory market was shut down in mainland China at the end of
2017.”
At a key meeting of
the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and
Fauna in Geneva this month, countries agreed to examine whether domestic ivory
markets are contributing to poaching or illegal trade but stopped short of calling
for those markets to be immediately closed.
Concerns in Japan
have also been heightened by a boom in tourism from China and the approach of
the Olympics next year.
Iris Ho, senior
wildlife specialist at Humane Society International, said she hoped Yahoo
Japan’s decision spelled the end of Japan’s domestic ivory market in the near
future.
“We now call on the
government of Japan to swiftly move towards the complete closure of its
domestic ivory market so that the millions of international tourists who will
descend on Japan for the 2020 Olympic Summer Games can visit a Japan that is
free of elephant ivory trade,” she said.
Akiko Kashiwagi
contributed to this report.
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