Over a 50-year period, Africa’s savanna elephant population declined by 70 percent, and forest elephants by 90 percent. Elephants continue to face many threats to their survival in the wild, including climate change, habitat destruction, human-wildlife conflict, and poaching for their ivory tusks to supply the trade in ivory. The demand for ivory is what drives elephant poaching – and all ivory markets fuel that demand in one way or another. While addressing the illegal trade in ivory is critical, closing all ivory markets, including legal markets, supports the global conservation and protection of elephants.
While the international commercial trade in ivory is banned and many countries have taken steps to close their markets, Japan is the leading outlier, with the largest remaining legal ivory market. Legal ivory markets, like Japan’s, stimulate demand for ivory products, confuse consumers and weaken demand reduction efforts, and make enforcement efforts difficult.
To protect elephants from the trade in ivory, Japan must take steps to close its domestic ivory market for good. Japan’s ivory market closure would send a strong signal to the international community that there is no future for the global trade in ivory.
All trade in ivory must be stopped to protect elephants
While the international commercial trade in ivory was banned in 1989 under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), countries were allowed to maintain legal domestic markets for ivory. In 2016, Parties to CITES agreed by consensus to a resolution that urged all countries with legal markets that contribute to poaching or illegal trade to close them.
While Japan claims the trade in ivory is “prohibited in principle,” in fact, Japan essentially allows any sale of pre-convention ivory (ivory imported before the 1989 CITES ban), except for unregistered whole tusks, as well as ivory purchased in two CITES-approved international sales. Japan’s legal framework for the control of the trade in ivory is designed and built to regulate and facilitate commercial ivory trade and to support ivory traders.
Today, there are almost 4,500 traders registered with the government to sell ivory, including retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers. When the registration program was first initiated In 2018, there were 13,200 traders registered. How much ivory are they actually selling to the Japanese public?
In lieu of government action to close the ivory market, many e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retailers have ceased selling ivory products, including Rakuten, Yahoo! Japan, Mercari Inc., Ito Yokado, and AEON, as well as other smaller retailers. For many, the decision was made in line with global momentum and to reduce the risk that ivory purchased on their platforms would be illegally exported.
Japan reports to have a 250+ tonne, privately held ivory stockpile available for purchase on its domestic market, which includes whole tusks that are registered with the government and cut pieces that are reported from the registered ivory businesses to the government. This stockpile does not include unregistered whole tusks, and any and every cut piece in private possession by citizens throughout Japan. Who is actually buying all this ivory? A recent survey indicates the general public isn’t interested.
Elephant Ivory vs. Japan: A Timeline
Market Snapshot
Japan’s legal framework for the control of the trade in ivory is designed and built to regulate and facilitate commercial ivory trade and support ivory traders.
Japan essentially allows any sale of pre-convention ivory, except for unregistered whole tusks, as well as ivory purchased in the two CITES-approved sales. The Government’s stated ivory stockpile is currently 174.3 tonnes of registered whole tusks (16,656 tusks), nearly 80 tonnes of cut pieces, and millions of individual items - all available for sale.
Japan has 5,500+ government-approved ivory traders who together operate more than 8,500 facilities, including for manufacturing, wholesale, and retail.
Japan’s ivory trade and industry remain active and Japan is still manufacturing new ivory products for its market.
Stockpiles of registered whole tusks fell from 17,312 tusks (185,002 kg) as of December 2019 to 16,512 tusks (174,309 kg) as of December 2022, a decrease of 800 whole tusks (10,693 kg).
According to detailed information provided by the Ministry of Environment, 207 whole tusks (weighing 3,289 kg) were also newly registered in that three-year time frame.
This means that 1,007 whole tusks (13,982 kg) were cut into pieces for production during that time.
Given that the reported stockpiles of cut pieces and tips increased by 836 kg between 2019 and 2022 from 74,113 kg to 75,949 kg, it appears that more than 13.1 tonnes of raw ivory were used to produce new ivory merchandise between 2019 and 2022.