Petition signed by over 1
million people calls on company to halt ‘appalling’ trade estimated at 12m
tonnes in recent years
Wednesday 27 January
2016 12.05 GMTLast modified on Wednesday 27 January
201612.14 GMT
Japan has defended its
online trade in ivory amid mounting pressure calling on the company to stop
selling thousands of products on its auction site.
The company sold
an estimated 12 tonnes of elephant tusks and fashioned pieces of ivory on
its Japanese auction site between 2012 and 2014, prompting the activist network
Avaaz to
launch a petition that has attracted more than 1m
signatures.
Referring to the trade as
Yahoo’s “bloody secret”, the petition calls on the chief executive of the
company, Marissa Mayer, and Japanese head, Manabu Miyasaka, to “urgently stop
all ivory sales from sites/platforms in Japan and
all other markets”.
“As global citizens, we
are appalled that you allow ivory to be sold … fuelling elephant extinction,”
the petition says.
On Wednesday, the company
defended the practice, insisting that it prohibited the sale of raw ivory and
ivory products that violates a 1989 trade ban.
The firm said its auction
site permitted only the sale of items that were produced before the ban went
into effect. “Since there is a chance some sales may be illegal we are
strengthening our policies. If we find a sale was illegal we cancel it straight
away,” Takako Kaminaga, a Yahoo Japan spokeswoman, said. “We ‘patrol’ 24 hours
a day.”
Yahoo Japan is a
joint-venture between Yahoo and the Japanese telecoms firm SoftBank. SoftBank
said it had no comment.
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