Asia Times: Japan bloodied in battle for wildlife trade


	April 22, 2000	atimes.com

Japan

Japan bloodied in battle for wildlife trade
By Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO - It has been dealt one blow after another at the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) conference in Kenya, but Japan remains determined to continue its campaign for what it calls as a sustainable trade in wildlife, including those that are endangered.

Considered the world's largest market for endangered species and products made from wild animals, Japan has been battling conservationists and other countries for years for leeway in the trade in ivory and hawksbill turtle products, as well for as the right to hunt whales and blue-fin tuna.

It had managed to find a few supporters, but this week alone saw Japan lose considerable ground in its campaign. On Monday, for instance, three African countries withdrew a joint proposal to resume ivory exports. Two days later, delegates at the CITES conference that ended on Thursday rejected a proposal from Cuba to reopen trade in shells from hawksbill turtles.

Japan, the top market for ivory, had lobbied hard to take 54 tonnes of the supposedly controlled export from Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia. Japan was also supporting the Cuban plan to make a single supervized shipment of up to 6,9000 kilograms of turtle shells from its registered stocks. The destination of the shipment, of course, was to have been Japan.

During the two decades prior to the 1992 closure of international trade in hawksbill turtle products, more than 50 countries were exporting shells and stuffed juvenile hawksbill to Japan alone.

Conservationists here applaud the decisions made in Kenya this week as important steps toward making Japan a more responsible country in protecting wildlife. But comments from government officials and reports churned out by the media here indicate that Japan is not about to beat a retreat in its drive to encourage sustainable trade in products made from protected species.

Shortly after Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia withdrew their proposal, Toshio Torii, deputy director of the Japanese Environment Agency's Wildlife Division, told reporters in Kenya: ''Japan's fundamental policy in CITES stresses that highly endangered species should be protected, but species with large stocks should be treated in accordance with their biological status.''

Stories on elephants done by the Japanese broadcast media have also focused on the huge agricultural losses African nations allegedly have to bear because of the encroachment of wild elephants on the fields of poor farmers there. In addition, a program on the state-owned NHK television channel has also shown pictures of schools and hospitals built in Botswana from money earned from ivory exports in Japan.

A similar tactic is being used to make the notion of hunting minke whales more palatable to Japanese conservationists and the international public. In an article published Tuesday in the leading daily Yomiuri, popular commentator Naoki Inose said that fish eaten by minke whales is equivalent to 30 percent of the annual fish consumption in Japan. ''This means that there is a marked waste of marine resources,'' said Inose.

''The West loves whales,'' he noted. But, he added, there is a need to put aside sentimentality and view the situation ''objectively''. According to Inose, Japan's push for whaling calls for a better understanding of the country's culture regarding whales. Besides, he argued, the minke whale population has grown so there is no reason why fishing for them cannot be resumed.

Tokyo has also taken care to project itself as responsible and strict in seeing to it that any trade involving wildlife does not get out of hand. Before the proposal to resume ivory exports was withdrawn, for example, Shinya Mogami of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), had been pointing out that Japan was selected as the sole importing country because of its stringent management system for the domestic ivory trade.

MITI manages the trade jointly with the Environment Agency. Mogami, who is with the ministry's Consumer Goods Industries Bureau, said that the government was even going to issue ''certification labels'' that were to be stuck on ivory products as an assurance to buyers that the ivory had been legally imported.

The Japanese use ivory mostly for seals used by rich businessmen. The average price for a handcarved seal is about 80,000 yen ($770).

But arguments from India and Kenya, which said poaching of elephants had grown since 1999, were apparently stronger than those offered by Japan, and convinced Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia not to resume ivory exports. Instead, the three countries, along with India and Kenya, agreed to strengthen an international surveillance system on illegal ivory traffic and review the elephant tusk trade until 2002.

Last July, Japan had actually imported about 50 tonnes of elephant tusks from Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia under arrangements brokered by CITES in 1997. The export was supposed to be a one-shot deal, and had been done in support of Japan's ivory product manufacturers who were said to be facing a severe drop in income because of dwindling supply. Yet Yukioshi Ishida, chair of the nationwide federation of wholesalers of name seals, says, ''The import in July didn't affect the industry very much because there were ivory stockpiles from before the ban.''

Despite Japan's stand regarding endangered species and wildlife, conservationists may take comfort from the observation of Yukio Murata of the World Wide Life Fund, Japan. According to Murata, the ivory trade will not flourish here for too long even if the export ban is lifted because young Japanese are simply not that interested in owning ivory products.

He says, ''The lack of desire for ivory products is partly due to the current trend as young people follow the West, and partly related to a growing conservation awareness among youth.''

(Inter Press Service)

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