| Elephant Conservation and Japan Illegal Trade in Ivory Legislation and Enforcement Action of JWCS |
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| ELEPHANT CONSERVATION AND JAPAN |
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| African elephants, which are one of the most important key species that belong to the African natural ecosystem, decreased their numbers from 1.34M to 0.62M in 1980s, while at the same time, in Japan ivory consumption hit a peak and Japan became the largest importer of ivory in the world. The total number of raw ivory Japan imports equals approximately 270 tons annually, which corresponds to approximately 10,000~15,000 elephants. They say that 60% of imported ivory was being processed for name seal stamps or ghankosh. Facing such a crisis, since the CITES banned the trading of ivory from African elephants, the sharp decline in African elephant population was barely halted. However, in 1990, southern African countries and Japan continued to insist the resumption of the ivory trade, therefore at the CoP 10 meeting held in Harare, Zimbabwe, during 1997, the African elephant populations of Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe were transferred from Appendix I back to Appendix II and in 1999, the standing committee agreed a eone-offf experimental export of around 50 tons of ivory from the stockpiles of these three countries to Japan.@ |
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