An official at the Japanese government-appointed agency that controls the country’s domestic ivory market is encouraging illegal trade in elephant tusks. The official advised an undercover investigator how to fraudulently register a tusk as legal and how to obstruct a potential police investigation, according to evidence obtained by the non-profit Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).
The new findings are based on an investigation of procedures at the Japan Wildlife Research Center (JWRC). JWRC is a non-government body appointed by Japan’s Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry to verify the legality and subsequently “register” ivory tusks before they enter Japan’s domestic market. Only tusks acquired before the 1989 ban on international trade in ivory or imported from two CITES-approved sales may be legally registered and sold in Japan. But evidence gathered by an undercover EIA investigator posing as an elephant tusk owner reveals JWRC complicity in fraudulent tusk registration.
The JWRC official advised the investigator how to resist a potential police investigation should she decide to sell the tusk illegally without registering it. “You need to stay with your story. No matter what they may say to you, you just don’t change your story,” the JWRC official advised. In a separate conversation, the official coached the investigator eight times to declare that the investigator’s tusk was acquired in the (pre-1989) “Showa Era,” thereby qualifying it for the “pre-ban” exemption and registration, though the investigator clearly stated the tusk was acquired in the year 2000, thus not exempt.
“Today’s revelations expose fraud and illegal ivory trade at the heart of the Government of Japan’s failed ivory control system,” said Allan Thornton, president of EIA, based in Washington, D.C. “Japan must now enact a domestic ivory ban to help stop the ongoing slaughter of Africa’s elephants.”
Next week in Geneva, Japan’s illegal ivory trade will be discussed by the Standing Committee of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Japan is currently classified as a “country of interest” subject only to limited scrutiny by the international community.
“Japan has reneged on the legal and moral obligations that it pledged to CITES and African elephant range states, thereby increasing demand for ivory and driving increased elephant poaching,” said Danielle Grabiel, Senior Policy Analyst at EIA.
Last month’s report by EIA Japan’s Illegal Ivory Trade and Fraudulent Registration of Ivory Tusks, exposed rampant fraud within the Japanese tusk registration system. Thirty of 37 ivory traders interviewed by an undercover investigator offered to engage in illegal activity to buy, sell or manufacture unregistered ivory tusks into “hanko” name seals, or offered to obtain JWRC tusk registration using fraudulent declarations as proof of legality of origin.
Over 5,500 tusks were registered in Japan between 2011 and 2014 without requiring proof of legal origin and acquisition as agreed with the CITES Secretariat and Standing Committee in October 2006.
EIA has provided copies of the audio recording and transcripts of the JWRC comments to the Metropolitan Police of Tokyo (MPT) for review. Tapes and transcripts of 11 ivory traders offering to engage in illegal ivory trade were also provided to the MPT and dossiers of the same evidence was given to the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry (METI), Ministry of Environment (MoE), and Ministry of Foreign Affairs in December.