The announcement follows finalization by CITES of the 2006 export quotas for sturgeon, principal source of caviar.
In January 2006, CITES did not publish the 2006 caviar export quotas for the Caspian Sea and other countries because they failed to provide the scientific basis to assess the sustainability of their sturgeon stocks. According to CITES, the information provided by the countries did not fully reflect the serious reduction in stocks or make sufficient allowances for illegal fishing.
Since then, the CITES Secretariat has not received the required information from the five Caspian Sea states (Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhastan and Turkmenistan) that would allow it to publish quotas for wild specimens of the sturgeon species in this shared basin. The deadline for the publication of export quotas for sturgeon products from shared stocks has now long passed.
The CITES Secretariat will, therefore, not be publishing any more new quotas for the year 2006. This means that no exports of wild specimens (with the exception of caviar from Persian sturgeon - Ancipenser persicus - from Iran) of these sturgeon stocks should take place this year.
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Bulk of international caviar trade suspended for 2006
- Monday, May 01 - 2006 at 14:26
Among the Caspian Sea states, which supply over 90% of the world's caviar, only Iran has been permitted by CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) to export 44,370 kg of caviar from Persian sturgeon in the current year.
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• Effective 1 April 1998, most of the 27 sturgeon species have been listed on Appendix II of CITES (the rest are in Appendix I). Since then, exports of caviar and other sturgeon products have had to comply with strict CITES provisions, including the use of permits (and quotas) and specific labeling requirements.• It is estimated that world sturgeon populations have declined by as much as 70 per cent in the past few decades. In particular, the species native to the Caspian Sea and rivers feeding it have suffered sturgeon habitat loss, destruction of breeding grounds, pollution and mismanaged fisheries. Unsustainable harvesting and illegal trade in wild sturgeon populations are major concerns.
More information: Rashmi De Roy, EWS-WWF
Tel +971 4 3537761
Fax +971 4 3537752
Email rderoy@wwfuae.ae
Anne-Birte Stensgaard, Senior News EditorMonday, May 01 - 2006 at 14:26 UAE local time (GMT+4)
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This article was updated on Sat May 26 2007.
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