business

Yahoo Japan defends online ivory sales as criticism grows

8 Comments
By ELAINE KURTENBACH

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8 Comments
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Since elephants are endangered, and many elephants being killed, this is an area in which I think there should be more regulation. There are currently 34 auctions of 'elephant ivory for making seals' on Yahoo, http://goo.gl/R3YMBH with almost all of the ivory looking very un-aged. How can this be?

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Does Yahoo Japan make enough money on "legal" ivory sales to offset the bad publicity? This is a classic example of corporate leadership being shortsighted.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

The group also said that the Yahoo Japan Auctions site sold more than 12 tons of ivory products, including whole elephant tusks, in 2012-2014. That site and others feature thousands of ads for ivory and ivory products.

That's utterly shameful. And why is it that we don't read of any outrage about this among people in Japan?

Similar to Taiji's dolphin cull or Japan's whaling industry, this seems like just another case where 'gaiatsu' (pressure from outsiders) is likely to fall short due to a nearly complete absence of outrage on the home front.

I am sure it is just a matter of time before Japanese vested interests in the ivory trade twist this around by making a lame argument that elephant ivory is an integral part of Japanese culture, or that it has some sort of scientific rationale, and that the anti-ivory crowd misunderstands and is unfairly picking on Japan.

Anyway, in the spirit of 'gaiatsu', the best approach here is probably to shame/pressure/boycott Yahoo in the U.S. Unfortunately, it is doubtful much progress would be made by directly approaching Yahoo Japan.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

EIA, the conservation group, contends that widespread use of fake documents has enabled traders to “legalize” more than 1,000 tusks a year since 2011.

THIS is reason enough to make ALL trade banned, ivory "business" is clearly tainted all to hell!

Individually owned tusks face no registration requirement in Japan, and the tusks are not marked in any way to ensure that the documents are valid for the items being registered

Japan like eel, maguro & many other marine species continually GETS IT ALL WRONG!! And ivory VERY wrong, disgusting in fact

Japan stop being so dense!!

3 ( +3 / -0 )

The international environmental campaign group Avaaz addressed its petition to Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Manabu >>Miyasaka, CEO of Yahoo Japan, and “all other companies allowing ivory sales online.”

No way any policy towards protecting large mammals from slaughter gets supported. Ivory trade will just become "research".

or Yahoo Japan will probably find another "it is our culture to do so". Are we going to see Avaaz activist being barred entry also in Narita and deported ?

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Interestingly the petition stated that other retailers such as Rakuten stopped sales of ivory products (mostly inkan stamps btw). Yet a quick search on Rakuten showed up thousands of 象牙 inkan results (zouge). Amazon also still sells ivory products, despite what this article says

I agree they should ban any sales of ivory, however it feels like they are singling out Yahoo at the moment, when others are just as guilty.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

No way any policy towards protecting large mammals from slaughter gets supported. Ivory trade will just become "research".

0 ( +1 / -1 )

If I remember correctly the legal ivory are ones that had been confiscated from poachers and sold to the market to fund law enforcement people. Another legal supply are from extinct Mammoth that was dug out of the ground.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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