Probe exposes Japanese e-commerce giant over blood ivory,whale sales 23 Mar 2014 The Sunday Independent SIMON BLOCH A SHOCKING investigative report published this week has exposed one of the world’s biggest online trading companies as marketing endangered wildlife products, including ivory from poached African elephants. In the report, the giant Japanese trading group Rakuten, via its wholly owned Japanese subsidiary Rakuten Ichiba (rakuten. co.jp), is identified as the world’s largest online trader in elephant ivory and whale products. Released by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) in conjunction with Humane Society International (HSI), “Blood e-Commerce: Rakuten’s profits from the slaughter of elephants and whales”, shows the giant Japanese online retailer’s website carries more than 28 000 ads for elephant ivory products and about 1 200 whale meat product ads. With up to 50 000 African elephants poached each year in a worsening crisis to satisfy the demand for ivory from Japan and China, Blood e-Commerce details how Japan’s ivory control regulations have failed to comply with requirements of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) to control raw ivory tusks and worked ivory “with demonstrably effective enforcement”. EIA and HSI researchers identified more than 90 percent of the ivory products sold on Rakuten Japan as “hanko” – name seals used to sign official documents. Large amounts of ivory hanko are known to have been produced from illegal ivory in Japan. Rakuten Ichiba also carries advertisements for “hard” ivory products, derived from the endangered forest elephants of Central Africa. “Rakuten is directly responsible for these sales, and is therefore directly profiting from the killing of elephants and whales,” the agencies claim. With operations and subsidiaries throughout Asia, Europe, the Americas and Oceania, the group’s flagship e-commerce business, Rakuten Ichiba, was founded in 1997. It is now Japan’s largest e-commerce marketplace, with more than 40 000 third-party merchants using it as a sales platform. Laboratory tests reveal some of the whale products sold by Rakuten Ichiba are highly polluted with mercury and pose a significant risk to the health of consumers. A search for “whale meat” on rakuten.co.jp in June last year yielded 773 whale products for sale, while the broader term “whale” generated more than 1 200 food products. Many of these originated from baleen whales, namely fin, sei, minke and Bryde’s whale, which are all protected species under the moratorium on commercial whaling established by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1986. These species are also afforded the highest level of protection by Cites, which prohibits international trade. Scientists have documented mercury levels more than 1 000 times higher than the government of Japan’s safe advisory level in species caught in Japanese coastal waters. Last year, eight of nine whale products purchased from Rakuten Ichiba exceeded the Japanese national limit for total mercury concentration of 0.4 parts per million (ppm). The mercury concentration in one sample of pilot whale meat measured 9.5 ppm, more than 20 times higher than the Japanese regulatory limit. The average mercury level of the nine products was 4.2 ppm, more than 10 times higher than the regulatory limit. Japan’s large whale hunts have been formally criticised by the IWC on countless occasions, most recently in a 2007 resolution which called on the country to suspend the Southern Ocean special permit hunt indefinitely. Australia took Japan to the International Court of Justice last year, stating that Japan was “in breach of its international obligations in authorising and implementing the Japanese Whale Research Programme” in the Southern Ocean. Rakuten, which has expanded its online presence overseas, has so far resisted international pressure to drop the sale of products made from whales. “We call on Rakuten subsidiaries in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Austria and elsewhere to urgently press Rakuten headquarters in Japan to ban all ads offering ivory and whale products,” said Kitty Block, vice-president of HSI. EIA’s president, Allan Thornto, said: “Rakuten’s ads are effectively as deadly as giving bullets to elephant poachers and harpoons to whalers. “It must act now to ban all ads selling elephant and whale products, or its global brand will be irrevocably tainted with the mass slaughter of these species.” In response to closing down a Rakuten Play account, a customer support adviser stated: “Rakuten’s Play does not sell elephant ivory or whale meat products, and were unaware of the story until it was in the news. We cannot make comment on other Rakuten marketplaces, and are awaiting an official statement from Rakuten Global. We have requested this and will provide it as soon as we have it.” Rakuten Brasil responded to a query on its Facebook page by stating that the sale of elephant ivory and whale meat is legal in Japan, and even claimed many of the products had medicinal value. It added that Rakuten in Japan is taking the report very seriously and is considering its response. The firm had operating profits of $244 million (R2.65 billion) in 2012 and more than 10 000 employees. Its acquisitions include Buy (now Rakuten Shopping) in the US and Play in the UK. It owns the Canadian e-book reader Kobo and is a major shareholder in Pinterest. thesundayindependent.newspaperdirect/epaper/viewer.aspx
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 20:25:35 +0000
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