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Japan Tiger Elephant Organization

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REPORT: Smugglers’ Source: Japan’s Legal Ivory Market – An Analysis of Chinese Court Decisions of Ivory Illegally Exported from Japan
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TOKYO (November 1, 2022)— Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund released today a report: “Smugglers’ Source: Japan’s Legal Ivory Market –An Analysis of Chinese Court Decisions of Ivory Illegally Exported from Japan”. Thousands of elephants are killed every year to supply the trade in their ivory tusks. While international commercial trade in ivory has been banned by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and many Parties have taken steps to close their markets*, Japan’s domestic ivory market remains open, supported by the world’s largest ivory stockpile**. Legal domestic ivory markets threaten the effectiveness of the international ban on commercial ivory trade and undermine the efforts of Parties that have closed their ivory markets.…

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PRESS RELEASE: 27 international NGOs sent a letter to the Tokyo Governor, urging prompt consideration of an ordinance for closing Tokyo’s ivory market in accordance with the recommendation by Tokyo’s expert panel
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The Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s (TMG) designated Advisory Council on Regulation of Ivory Trade issued the final recommendations after seven meetings and more than two years of discussions and deliberations. 27 international NGOs sent a letter to the Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike to thank for her efforts so far and urge her to implement the recommendations expeditiously. . In particular, the third recommendation has the most potential for impact and deserves the most attention: “[…] Ivory trade is regulated by legal frameworks in major countries around the world as well, and it is permitted with the limited exception of art and such items. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government should consider legal or other effective means to ensure that the ivory trade does…

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PRESS RELEASE: Tokyo Ivory Assessment Process Closes, Includes Consideration of Legal Measures to Address Ivory Trade
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Environmentalists welcomed the recommendations from the designated panel of experts to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) on steps to take to address its ivory trade problem. After international concerns were raised about Tokyo’s ivory trade and illegal exports, in January 2020 Tokyo’s Governor Koike expressed a commitment to taking meaningful action in Tokyo, as leading international city, to address the ivory trade within Tokyo and fulfill a responsibility to the global community. The designated Advisory Council on the Regulation of Ivory Trade’s main tasks were to examine the ivory trade within Tokyo, analyze the existing national regulations on domestic trade, and assess and propose measures to be taken by the TMG. The seventh and final meeting of the Tokyo Advisory…

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PRESS RELEASE: Nations meeting next week will realize how seriously Japan lags in addressing its domestic ivory market
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TOKYO (February 28, 2022)— The Standing Committee (SC) to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is going to discuss “Closure of Domestic Ivory Markets” at its 74th meeting on 7-11 March in Lyon. The working document prepared for discussion includes reports submitted by 10 countries/regions, including Japan, a non-elephant range state which maintains a legal domestic market at a time when many leading consumer nations have closed their markets to protect elephants from the threat of poaching to supply the ivory trade. The Government of Japan (GoJ) insists that “Japan has been implementing stringent measures to ensure that its domestic ivory market is not contributing to poaching or illegal trade”; however, a…

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PRESS RELEASE: Tokyo Committee on Ivory Trade Regulation Could Backfire; A Recommendation to the Governor Unlikely
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TOKYO (February 9, 2022)— Elephant advocates worldwide sent a letter to Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike to warn that the “Advisory Committee on Regulation of Ivory Trade” she established two years ago is now failing to achieve its goal: producing a specific recommendation on regulation of ivory trade to the Governor. In a move that suggested a willingness to take stronger action on ivory trade than the national government, in early 2020 the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) announced the development of the “Advisory Committee on Regulation of Ivory Trade”, comprised of experts from different fields including law, economy, ecology, media and conservation, to explore and discuss measures to prevent illegal ivory trade and export.The international community including the range states of…

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Donations from Sophie Hawkins
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Thank you for the Donations from Sophie Hawkins, a fashion designer based in the UK! Sophie Hawkins, a sustainable fashion designer collaborated with a denim factory in Okayama, Japan to produce her own line of jumpsuits. Since she wanted to promote conservation of endangered tigers, she found JTEF on Instagram and contacted us about supporting our work. With the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, JTEF had to suspend participation in all face-to-face events, which meant that we took a huge loss in our fundraising efforts here in Japan. Getting a message from Sophie during that time was so encouraging! At that time, she was just getting her project up and running, using crowdfunding, she was able to launch…

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2020 Olympics Games are now over. Focus on the closure of TOKYO ivory market.
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31 organizations in the world jointly sent a letter to the Tokyo Governor, Yuriko Koike to take steps to ban most elephant ivory sales. October 7, 2021The Honorable Yuriko KoikeGovernor of TokyoSecretarial Section, General Affairs Division, Office of the Governor for Policy PlanningTokyo Metropolitan Government8-1 Nishi-Shinjuku 2-chomeShinjuku-Ku, Tokyo 163-8001Japan Dear Governor Koike:Congratulations to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) for successfully hosting the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games. We appreciate your tireless efforts to meet the many challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that the Games are over, we urge Tokyo and Japan to focus on pending matters of global importance, including the assessment of Tokyo’s ivory trade policies and establishing measures to eliminate the illegal ivory trade and, thereby,…

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PRESS RELEASE: Japan’s Domestic Bekko Market　Dependent on Smuggled Tortoiseshell Risking the Extinction of Hawksbill Turtles
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Tokyo, Japan – June 30, 2021 Tokyo, Japan – July 1, 2021 A report is released today by the Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund (JTEF): “Dark Side of the Everlasting Tortoiseshell-Crafting in Japan”. The hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) is one of the seven species of sea turtles and is listed as “Critically Endangered” (CR) in the IUCN Red List. One of the major threats to hawksbills is illegal take for the purpose of commercial trade in its tortoiseshell; used exclusively as a raw material for crafts called “bekko zaiku (crafts)” in Japan. Japan was famously the world’s largest country importing tortoiseshell. All populations of hawksbill turtles were listed in Appendix I of the “Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species…

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