Word: tradings
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Environmentalists give Japan its highest marks for its turnaround on trade in endangered species, but they question whether the new reforms are too little and too late. While Japan has greatly reduced its whaling, whale lovers are concerned that the country still kills hundreds of minke whales for "scientific research." The Japanese feel maligned by the West on the whaling issue, since they view cetaceans as food the way Americans see cattle...
...moment, the slaughter of African elephants by poachers has pushed the whales' plight from the headlines, and in the case of the ivory trade, Japan has a better record of reform. In the mid-1980s, Japan accounted for as much as 70% of the final market for ivory products. In 1983 and 1984 alone, more than 135,000 elephant tusks were imported, mostly to be carved into signature seals called hanko. Then, as international complaints about the ivory trade mounted, Japan's dealers reversed their aggressive import policies. By 1988 ivory imports had been reduced by 75% from the peak...
Unfortunately, the Japanese ivory traders delayed too long. Unrelenting poaching has cut Africa's wild elephant population by more than half in the past decade, to an estimated 625,000. In October the 102 nations that subscribe to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species are expected to declare the African elephant endangered, which would make the ivory trade illegal in those countries. Not waiting for a worldwide ban, the U.S. and the E.C. decided last month to stop ivory imports immediately. Japan followed suit with a partial ban that would reduce its ivory imports to a trickle...
...Japan has changed its policies concerning threatened animals. As recently as 1987, the country had partly exempted itself from the CITES treaty in order to maintain imports of 14 endangered species, more than any other nation. Since then, Japan has reduced this number to eleven by agreeing to ban trade in the green sea turtle, musk deer and desert monitor lizard...
Such changes have been slow in coming, in part because responsibility for controlling the trade in endangered species rests with the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, which is also charged with protecting and promoting Japanese commercial interests. For instance, MITI delayed limiting imports of endangered hawksbill turtles because the agency did not want to allocate quotas among different industries that used the shells. Finally, with both the turtles and the turtle-consuming industries facing extinction, MITI has taken the small step of limiting imports to traditional craftsmen who carve the carapaces into traditional hair combs. Says Toru Takimoto, MITI...