Japan Press Weekly

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2017 June 7 - 13 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Japan should tighten controls on its domestic ivory market: JCP lawmaker

Japanese Communist Party lawmaker Takeda Ryosuke urged the Abe government to strengthen restrictions on the domestic elephant tusk market.

On May 25 at a House of Councilors Environment Committee meeting Takeda pointed out that the Japanese domestic ivory market will be the only legal market in the world and because of this Japan will likely attract illegal elephant ivory dealers, and demanded that the Japanese government place tighter restrictions on the domestic market.

The international community, at the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the Washington Convention, formally known as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, adopted a resolution calling for closure of all ivory markets last year.

It also calls for tightening controls on ivory. However, in Japan, only full form tusks are subject to regulation.

Takeda presented a case where almost full form raw ivories whose tip of tusks had been cut were nearly smuggled on a massive scale into Japan, and said, “According to the Japanese regulation, these were not ‘raw ivories.’ The government should target all elephant tusks. Otherwise, Japan will violate the Washington Convention.”

Environment Minister Yamamoto Koichi answered, “As international restrictions have become stricter, the Japanese domestic ivory market for commercial trade needs to conform to international regulations.”