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© KYODOVisitors warned against departing Japan with souvenirs made from ivory
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Ah_so
That's a hell of s lot of elephants.
Cricky
Any ivory is the result of a dead elephant which having Googled it there are surprisingly few of.
Aly Rustom
really? where are they getting their ivory from?
Disillusioned
More unscrupulous Japanese business practices telling lies to customers just to make a sale.
Luddite
Maybe Japan should ban sales of ivory. Soem countries do it, every country should do it.
smithinjapan
"Japan has maintained a domestic ivory market, saying trading within the country is unrelated to poaching."
The usual, "it's a domestic issue" when caught in the lie, and "please cooperate and make us an exception". I can just see the reason why they'd get in trouble at Customs actually being because Japan doesn't want it to be known quite so much that they still deal in ivory, and getting caught elsewhere and explaining you got it in Japan is a way Japan looks bad.
Luddite: "Maybe Japan should ban sales of ivory."
Yeah, but that would be the humane and logical thing to do, and this is Japan.
robert maes
Concurring here with most of these comments. Don't sell ivory, then nobody can take it out of the country. It is surprizing that Japan does still not have basic animal protection laws, does not love animals more and see them as something more than food. Most NPO's in the country are only there to make money or to look good in the eyes of those around them. Animals give much more loyalty and love then anyone of us can give them.
Haruka
Japan has a ton of stockpiled Ivory just like whale meat. They horded the ivory when the world banding of the product started to come to light.
Goodlucktoyou
Japanese ivory death is condoned on the pretext that it is a Japanese heritage. I watched a NHK documentary that fooled the living heritage craftsman.
kohakuebisu
Further to Haruka's point, there is a licensed stockpile of old catches, but its existence works as a mechanism for newly poached ivory to be passed off as old stock. I guess the licensing is not properly enforced because the people in charge ultimately do not care.
Elephants are only one of many many species under threat, most of which comes from habitat loss, but wiping them out simply for ivory is shameful.
maybeperhapsyes
So when these folk are caught, they should say where they bought the item.
Inspectors can then pay said place a visit, confiscate said items of stock, then reimburse the person who is now out of pocket.
but hey! Thats too obvious a solution. Tij.
GW
This is arse backwards! Stickers need to handed out to Japanese Customs telling them NOT to turn a blind eye to illegal ivory IMPORTS into Japan!!
But hey THAT is to obvious!
CoconutE3
Why sell them in the first place??