But the country is facing growing pressure to closes down its ivory market. Conservationists hope to use the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as leverage.
Hideki Arami, 56, carves an ivory hanko, or personal stamp, at his shop in Tokyo on April 15, 2019. Arami, a third-generation hanko carver, says hard ivory from the center of a tusk is the best material to make hanko. By Simon Denyer Simon Denyer Tokyo bureau chief covering Japan, North Korea and South Korea. Email Bio Follow April 26 at 5:00 AM TOKYO — The best ivory for carving a hanko, or a personal seal, comes from the center of the tusk.
Japan’s government, though, is digging in its heels, arguing that its domestic ivory market is controlled and contained, using materials imported decades ago and not contributing to the poaching epidemic. As elephant populations plummeted, CITES agreed a landmark ban on the international ivory trade in 1989. But that did not affect domestic ivory markets.
Japan argued that it was exempt from the ruling because its market used previously imported stockpiles and asserted that there is no evidence that freshly poached ivory was still entering the country.Indeed, there is substantial evidence that ivory held in Japan is being illegally exported to China in significant amounts, according to wildlife trade experts TRAFFIC.
Masayuki Sakamoto of the Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund says 113 ivory shipments amounting to more than two tons were seized going from Japan to China between 2011 and 2016, with only seven of those seizures made by Japanese customs officers and the rest by Chinese authorities.
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