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By Dominick Mezzapesa - Wildlife Planet News After decades of Ignoring an international ban on trading poached ivory, it's time to give Japan a beatdown for their elephant poaching crimes. Wildlife Planet has focused it's attention, and rightfully so on China. It's our poster child for the mass slaughtering of Elephants, Tigers and Rhinos. Without a doubt it has earned much of the blame for the killing of 96 elephants a day. China's role in the butchering of Dogs and cats for food, alone deserves worldwide scorn and ridicule. All this makes China, Wildlife Planets "king of the douchebags" award winners, but let's not forget their little butchering douchie cousins, Japan. While unsure if Japan enjoys Tiger bone soup or shoving Rhino horn powder up their butts to cure their hemorrhoids, we do know when it comes to Elephant Ivory, Japan has been an almost equal partner in wildlife trafficking as China and Vietnam has, but with one exception. China and Vietnam at least pretend to respect the world's view on trying to save endangered animals and they even give lip service to the ending of the dog meat trade, but the Japanese leadership is an arrogant bunch of morally depraved people who present to you their middle finger whenever conservation is brought up. When delegates to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) voted in October to close all domestic ivory markets, Japan obstinately declared 'Go to hell,' Of course they did not use those words, unlike Wildlife Planet they are diplomatic but, that in a nutshell was their response. Japan’s minister of the environment publicly denied that his country’s extensive ivory industry, largely devoted to the production of hanko—personal stamps, or seals, used in lieu of a written signature—trafficked in poached ivory. Japan has long been “the world’s largest online dealer of elephant ivory,” and similar to the world's ocean resources, Japan refuses to believe anything matters outside their little piss ant of a country. But mounting pressure placed on the stubborn, egotistical island from various places like the international community, home grown activist and lately, their own domestic press has given reason to hope that Japans smugness may be weakening. Recently, Hankoyo.com, one of the largest online retailers of ivory Hanko, announced it would no longer sell ivory, and specifically cited the need to end poaching in Africa as the motive. Two other Hanko retailers—Toyodo and Shoeido quickly followed with their own announced end to ivory sales. CITES which Wildlife Planet has always believed is nothing more than joke stuffed into a dead two-week old fish. The fact is this buffoonery of an organization has as much power as a 20 year old AAA battery. CITES, in 1999 made an agreement with Japan to have limited legal Ivory trade. Japan went along with the program that allowed Japan to trade ivory from tusks legally acquired before the1989 ban or imported from two subsequent CITES-approved sales. Like China, Japan took their CITES agreement to the bathroom and wiped their you-know-what with it and flushed it down the toilet, knowing CITES could do nothing to them except throw a little shade their way. Japan a wildlife criminal accomplice in the killing of 96 Elephants a day. The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) issued a report in August 2015 that said “On a single day the shopping sites of Yahoo Japan and competitor Rakuten Ichiba “each carried approximately 6,000 different ivory ads. The combined sale price for the ivory products on both sites totaled more than U.S. $5.1 million.” These ads, merchandise report calculated out to some 5,500 tusks all of it was without proof of legal origin as it should have had per the CITES agreement that was floating serenely in some sewage somewhere out in the Pacific ocean. After EIA presented the results of its investigations to Tokyo Metropolitan Police, government investigators visited one ivory manufacturer and discovering the company had no records of where they Ivory came from, under Japanese law, they were only able to hand out a penalty that amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist, with a wet noodle no less. Read the EIA Report Here As Wildlife Planet has stated on many occasions, CITES has no real power and their only purpose is to gather every few years, cheat on their wives, plead for bigger donations and not let all these wildlife murdering countries interfere with their good time. At the end of every CITES conference they stand around and pat themselves on the back, telling the world "This time we mean it, there are some tough penalties in these agreements that are by-the-way not legally binding to any country." Wildlife Planet will explain these agreement in real terms, basically these morons gather around and 'Pinky Promise' they will behave.... End of story! In September, 16 members of the United States House of Representatives sent a letter to the ambassador from Japan, noting that failure to enforce regulations on the ivory trade was directly contributing to the rapid disappearance of Africa’s elephants. They pointed out that participation in the trade also provides a funding source for “rebel militias and terrorist groups like the Lord’s Resistance Army, Al-Shabaab, and Boko Haram.” And they called for Japan to end its domestic trade. After the Ambassador received this strongly worded letter he was most grateful because the embassy was running low on Charmin and he really needed to go. The only real change that ever takes place is when people demand it or when politicians and CEO's feel they will lose their job, money and prestige. One thing that can be done by the public is demanding Yahoo's chief executive, Marissa Mayer to cease the selling of Ivory on their site. That by itself should put a serious dent into Japan's illegal ivory trade. You can contact her through this email marissa.mayer@yahoo-inc.com or we can blow up Yahoo's phones. Nothing tells a CEO to get their act together than a million phone calls coming in, clogging their lines up and distrupting their business. Yahoo's phone number is 408-349-3300 As usual Wildlife Planet says DON'T BE AN ASS! If your email you can simply say "Why are you contributing to the slaughter of nearly 100 Elephants a day?" If you call then say something like "Stop killing our Elephants, Stop selling Ivory on your site. Keep it simple and keep it clean Related Stories
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