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BLOG: Member of Tokyo Ivory Arts and Crafts Cooperative Association arrested for allegedly being involved in illegal ivory exports
 458 449 Japan Tiger Elephant Organization

On June 2, 2025, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (TMPD) arrested the executives of Daigo Ivory, Ltd. (Saitama Prefecture). Daigo Ivory Store is a member of the Tokyo Ivory Arts and Crafts Cooperative Association (21 companies). The charges for the arrest were falsely representing cut pieces (divided/cut tusks) or scraps of elephant ivory as mammoth ivory (violation of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act) and violating the compliance requirements imposed on registered businesses engaged in ivory trade (“special international species business”) (violation of the Act on Conservation of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora / ACES). The direct charge is a violation of the domestic law regarding the sale of elephant ivory, but the larger questions that this case raises…

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BLOG: Japan, Ivory, & CITES SC78
 533 518 Japan Tiger Elephant Organization

By Amy Zets Croke (EIA Senior Manager, Wildlife Campaigns) and Masayuki Sakamoto (JTEF Executive Director) Among many other important issues relevant to keeping elephants safe from international commercial trade, domestic ivory markets were on the agenda at the 78th meeting of the CITES Standing Committee (SC78). To protect elephants, countries endorsed and encouraged the closure of domestic ivory markets to support the international ban on commercial ivory trade in 2016 at the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP17) to CITES. Specifically, Parties agreed by consensus to language in Resolution Conf. 10.10 (Rev. CoP19) paragraph 5 that “urges those Parties in whose jurisdiction there is a legal domestic market for ivory that is contributing to poaching or illegal…

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BLOG: Tokyo’s Ivory Paradox: Promoting Trade While Promising Reform
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By Masayuki Sakamoto, Executive Director of the Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund and Amy Zets Croke, Senior Manager at the Environmental Investigation Agency In Japan, Tokyo’s elephant ivory trade policy approach is in the middle of a paradox. On one hand, Governor Yuriko Koike’s administration has promised reform of domestic trade controls in ivory to prevent illegal export. On the other hand, Tokyo Metropolitan Government has been providing subsidies to increase demand for ivory and work towards pushing for international trade to be reopened. Where does Tokyo leadership really stand? VIDEO: Tokyo’s Ivory Paradox: Promoting Trade While Promising Reform In Africa, elephants continue to be poached for their tusks to supply the trade in their ivory – today, Japan is…

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BLOG: Japan is Revising its Law on Ivory Trade – Time to Finally Close the Market
 299 298 Japan Tiger Elephant Organization

On the streets of Tokyo, if you’re looking for elephant ivory products, particularly hanko (name seals), you can pop into a shop and purchase ivory legally and easily. In recent years most ivory consumer countries have closed their domestic markets for ivory. However, one major outlier still remains open for business: Japan. For years, the EIA and JTEF have drawn attention to Japan’s role in the global ivory trade – the very existence of Japan’s ivory market undermines international efforts to protect elephants from the trade in ivory. Elephants are still being poached in Africa, which means that demand for their ivory tusks persists. In April 2024 Vietnam intercepted 1.6 tonnes of elephant ivory smuggled from Nigeria, following the March…

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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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BLOG: Resonate across the globe in the World Elephant Day 2020, demands for closing the ivory market in Tokyo and Japan
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August 12th is World Elephant Day, a day to celebrate the world’s iconic elephants and their preservation and protection. Thousands of elephants are killed every year for their tusks to make trinkets including hanko or name seal stamp, and in some African regions, elephant populations are being completely decimated. Any existing ivory market is a threat to elephants everywhere. To address the threat of ivory trade, many governments have closed their ivory markets, to send a signal that ivory consumption is unacceptable and also to simplify enforcement. The United States, China, the United Kingdom and other ivory consuming nations have taken steps to shut down their domestic ivory markets. Japan’s ivory market, however remains open based on its firm policy,…

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BLOG: The “New Normal” Sharing The Earth with Living Creatures in The Wild
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The Covid-19 pandemic has been damaging human health, our daily lives and economy all over the world. As a consequence of the sudden standstill of many human activities, the living creatures in the wild are significantly affected somehow.　They seem to be less pressured in their habitat than before the pandemic and have set about stretching their range to the limit, for example, tiger sightings have become more common in villages in India. This phenomenon may probably be because of stagnant tourism and development projects, and restricted daily movement of the residents. What’s happening to poaching and illegal trade of wild animals? Looking at the recent news, 6 elephants were killed with their tusks chopped off within just one day in…

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BLOG: 2020 World Wildlife Day, a message from JTEF
 268 272 Japan Tiger Elephant Organization

According to predictions, corona virus is unlikely to stop influencing things soon. Many people may feel it’s an unexpected disaster. But, it’s not true. This kind of incident could have happened at any moment. Our society has already experienced outbreak of SARS and subsequently, several types of bird flu, etc. The root of outbreak, even on a pandemic level, in some cases like these newly emerging infectious diseases, are the results of human beings stirring up the natural ecosystems violently, which have been diversified in each area of the planet.. We warned the same thing at that time, when SARS flourished, but have to repeat it now that we must reconsider about commercial exploitation, consumption and trade of wild animals not…

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