Press Release

WASHINGTON/TOKYO (June 26, 2020)— Elephant advocates worldwide are urging the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, under Governor Yuriko Koike’s leadership, to complete Tokyo’s elephant ivory trade assessment, which is examining the trade in ivory in Tokyo prefecture, and propose measures to address it. As Tokyo embraces the “new normal” and continues to adapt to address COVID-19, the advocates are renewing their plea to protect elephants by urging the Tokyo government to immediately restart the Advisory Committee on Regulation of Ivory Trade, which has been suspended for four months. While Africa’s elephants continue to be poached for their ivory, the government of Japan has failed to adequately control the legalized domestic trade in ivory, and loopholes in the superficial regulations have facilitated illegal…

Geneva, Switzerland Elephant advocates are celebrating reports that Yahoo! Japan, the world’s largest internet ivory retailer, has decided to end sales of elephant ivory on its platforms by November 1st, 2019. The decision was based on evidence that ivory purchased on Yahoo! was being exported illegally to China, according to inside sources. It comes on the last day of the global wildlife trade conference in Geneva where Japan’s domestic ivory market has been in the spotlight with a growing chorus of countries calling for its immediate closure. “This is great news for elephants,” said Danielle Grabiel, Wildlife Team Lead for the Washington, DC and London, UK based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). “Yahoo has recognized what the Government of Japan still denies: Japan’s…

July 25, 2019: TOKYO Tokyo, Japan – One year before the start of the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games, international and Japanese conservation organizations are appealing to Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike to ban the sale of ivory in the city. Japan boasts the world’s largest legal domestic ivory market; its ongoing support for an industry that fuels the poaching of an estimated 20,000 African elephants each year threatens to tarnish the reputation of Tokyo and the 2020 Games. The Environmental Investigation Agency US, Humane Society International, WildAid, Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund and Tears of the African Elephant urge the Governor to support international efforts to conserve and protect Africa’s rapidly declining elephant population by closing the ivory market in Tokyo…

May 17, 2019 WASHINGTON—As athletes and organizers prepare for the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is asking Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike to support efforts to end the ivory trade in Japan, the largest ivory market in the world. Mayor de Blasio is among a growing group of world leaders and elected officials urging Japan to ban all ivory sales to combat the illegal ivory trade in advance of the 2020 Summer Games. In a letter sent to Governor Koike last week, Mayor de Blasio wrote: “Sustainability is a key theme of next year’s games as reflected in the guiding principle: ‘Be better together – for the planet and the people.’….With millions of people…