UN states bordering the Caspian Sea have agreed to reduce their combined catch quotas for caviar in the sea’s six sturgeon species by an average of 20% compared with 2005, with reductions of one third for some species, due to the decline in stocks in recent years.
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The UN’s Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has published the export quotas for caviar and other sturgeon products from the Caspian during 2007.
Last year CITES did not publish caviar quotas for the Caspian Sea’s sturgeon fisheries because the five States concerned – Azerbaijan, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and Turkmenistan – did not provide sufficient information about the sustainability of their sturgeon catch.
This led to a UN suspension on the international trade in caviar that is taken from wild sturgeon, which was imposed last year.
CITES said that this year’s combined quotas for caviar exports are 15% lower than 2005, and that quotas for caviar exports from Persian and stellate sturgeon have been reduced by over 25%. Meanwhile, quotas for caviar from Russian sturgeon have risen by 23%, largely due to the decision by the Russian Federation to use fewer of the fish it catches for restocking hatcheries and a higher percentage for caviar exports.
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By GlobalDataIt has not been possible to publish quotas for beluga, the world’s most valuable caviar, because the information provided by the five states is not yet complete, CITES added. The Secretariat has granted the range states an additional month to provide the missing information before a final decision is made.
“The decision taken by CITES last year not to publish caviar quotas has undoubtedly helped to spur improvements to the monitoring programmes and scientific assessments carried out jointly by the five Caspian neighbours,” said CITES Secretary-General Willem Wijnstekers. “However, ensuring that sturgeon stocks recover to safe levels will take decades of careful fisheries management and an unrelenting struggle against poaching and illegal trade. The income earned from the sale of sturgeon products in 2007 should provide both an incentive and the means to pursue the long-term recovery of this commercially and ecologically valuable natural resource.”
Meanwhile, recognising that sturgeon stocks in the Black Sea/lower Danube River have been seriously depleted, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine have requested zero quotas for 2007 and Serbia has requested a small quota for Beluga caviar exports.
