Japan said nothing in the runup to the 12th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the 160-nation forum that met in Chile last week to reconsider, among other things, the 13-year-old ban on ivory sales. It didn't have to, really. Everyone knows that Japan is by far the largest market for the beautiful yellow-white substance, the stuff of elephants' tusks, mainly because of its conviction that "hanko," or personal seals, should be made of ivory rather than plastic. Without an easing of restrictions, the Japanese ivory business -- and a centuries-old tradition of craftsmanship -- could not last much longer. It therefore obviously suits this country that the contentious debate over the ivory ban ended the way it did, with a vote that, in principle, opens the door to a resumption of trade.

For many conservationists, including the Japan Wildlife Conservation Society, the hot-button questions are these: Why do Japanese value their ivory hanko over elephants' very survival? How can a country that aspires to progressive environmental thinking, even leadership ("Kyoto" is now shorthand for the antiglobal warming movement) take such seemingly regressive stances when it comes to whales, say, or elephants?

The answers to these two questions are that they don't and it doesn't. Or at least not necessarily. As with much else in the environmental arena, the issues are not that simple. In Santiago last week, the debate was not about whether markets and profits and cultural traditions are more important than elephants' survival -- no one argued that they are -- but about whether a balance can feasibly be struck, satisfying a legitimate consumer demand and addressing local African farmers' grievances without jeopardizing a remarkable species.