ENVIRONMENT: Curbing Caviar Trade to Save Sturgeon

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jun 14 2001 (IPS) - The formula the international community has chosen to prevent the extinction of the sturgeon, the fish that provides the delicacy caviar, is to make deep and immediate cuts in exports of this expensive product.

A final decision on the measure will be taken next week by the standing committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which since 1997 has included several varieties of sturgeon on its list of most endangered species.

Caviar, the tiny black and salty eggs of the sturgeon, is a delicacy usually associated with a luxurious dinner. And the industrialisation of this product has grown to represent a vital source of employment for the exporting countries.

The most exquisite varieties can fetch a price of 4,000 dollars a kilo. The portion considered appropriate per person in a given meal is 100 to 200 grams.

Over-fishing and illegal marketing of the sturgeon in the countries along the Caspian Sea have reduced annual catches from 22,000 tons in late 1970s to just 1,100 tons today, according to Robert Hepworth, an official of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which organised the meeting this week in Geneva.

One plan debated by delegates from the nations along the Caspian Sea and from international institutions recommends cutting the region’s caviar exports by 80 percent, at least until market controls and sturgeon preservation measures are in place.

The restrictions would mostly affect Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan, countries in which the caviar production and marketing systems suffered an upheaval following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Iran, the fifth of the Caspian Sea caviar exporters, will not be subject to restrictions “because its management system for sturgeon is relatively effective,” according to UNEP.

Until 1991, the caviar market was controlled by the Soviet Union and Iran, which monitored trade and implemented sturgeon conservation measures.

But with the fall of the Soviet Union, “the system collapsed and many entrepreneurs dealing in this ‘black gold’ sprang up to replace the state-owned companies,” said the UN agency.

Currently, illegal catches surpass authorised catches 10- to 12- fold, stated Willem Wijnstekers, CITES secretary-general.

The value of legally traded caviar from the four former Soviet republics reaches some 100 million dollars annually, but the sum rises to more than a billion dollars if illegal caviar is included, Wijnstekers said.

The CITES standing committee will meet next week in Paris to determine the future of the caviar industry.

Among the measures recommended to preserve the sturgeon is to conduct scientifically based assessments of the catch and export quotas in the four countries involved in order to determine the sustainable sturgeon population.

Another proposal was to beef up controls over “domestic trade in sturgeon, and improve licensing, identification, labelling and hatchery-production systems.”

The term ‘caviar’ applies only to the salted eggs of three types of sturgeon: the beluga, which produces the largest and most expensive eggs, the osetra, and the sevruga, which produces the smallest eggs and the least expensive caviar.

Caviar produced in Iran fetches higher prices on the international market than that originating in the other Caspian Sea nations.