Japan's new rules for curbing ivory trade won't work, many experts say
Starting this summer, Japan will require whole elephant tusks to be carbon dated.
Starting July 1, anyone in Japan who wishes to register and sell a whole elephant tusk must first prove its age through carbon dating. According to Ministry of the Environment officials, the new measure is meant to ensure that illegal tusks acquired after 1990, when international trade in ivory was banned, don’t find their way into Japan’s domestic ivory market—now the largest in the world.
More than that, officials believe that carbon dating will prove to be so burdensome as to dissuade private citizens—who hold untold numbers of tusks—from selling their ivory to dealers. As dealers exhaust their remaining stockpiles, this will cause Japan’s market to slowly peter out, they say.
“We expect that the number of newly registered whole ivory
