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Worldwide trade in wild caviar is banned
The worldwide trade in wild caviar was
banned on 3 Jan 2006 after nine major caviar-producing countries failed to
convince the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES)
that their stocks of wild sturgeon are sustainable. The ban on a trade, worth (£58 million per year, is enforceable with heavy trade sanctions
against nations that ignore it.. It does not
affect caviar produced from farmed sturgeon, though this is far less prized. Each year, CITES forces the countries
that produce caviar from wild sturgeon to reveal how many tonnes of the
endangered fish they intend to catch in the year ahead. The rules used to
monitor these quotas were strengthened by CITES's 169 member countries in 2004
after a 30% decline in wild sturgeon stocks. The sturgeon-exporting countries –
Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Bulgaria, Romania,
Serbia-Montenegro and Ukraine – proposed lower quotas for 2006 than for
previous years, but CITES decided the science behind their projected 2006 quotas
did not bear up under scrutiny. Black market
CITES claims that the caviar-producing states
failed to take into account the impact that illegal sturgeon fishing has on
stocks, making it impossible to tell if populations will be sustainable.
“Unless the quotas fully reflect the reductions in stocks and make allowance
for illegal fishing, we cannot assure a sustainable fishery.” says their
spokesman. In 2005, CITES allowed 71,000 kilograms
of wild caviar to be exported. But in the European Union alone
12,000 kilograms of black market caviar has been seized by customs officers in
the last five years, according to Traffic, the wildlife monitoring network. CITES hope the producers will soon
fill in the “gaps in the information they have provided”, which
could then allow trade to resume at sustainable levels. Retailers believe they will be able to
survive for some time on existing caviar stocks, but are nevertheless consulting
CITES over its latest move. 6 Jan 2006
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