Brussels, 04/01/2006 (Agence Europe) - The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, CITES, decided, on 3 January, to ban all exports of caviar and other sturgeon products in response to the severe decline in sturgeon stocks. The ban applies to products coming from “shared stocks”, that is, fishing areas shared by several countries, mainly in the Caspian Sea. In addition to the Caspian Sea, CITES has also noted a severe decline in sturgeon stocks in other shared fishing areas such as the Black Sea and the lower Danube River (Romania, Bulgaria), as well as in the Heilongjiang/Amur River on the Sino-Russian border. Exports of farmed sturgeon eggs remain authorised.
CITES is unable to give an accurate assessment of how much illegal trafficking is being carried out from the main exporting countries of Iran, Russia and Kazakhstan but illegal trafficking is said to represent “several times the quantities sold legally”. CITES also calls on importers, including the European Union, to ensure that all imports come from legal sources. These countries must establish registration systems for their domestic processing and repackaging plants and rules for the labelling of repackaged caviar. “May key importing countries have still not put these measures in place”, CITES regrets. Producer countries are invited to place emphasis on the control of the domestic trade in sturgeon, as caviar is also a highly prized local delicacy in these countries.
Illegal caviar is said to supply 90% of the French market, which is the leading market for the product in the EU, the French Ministry for Ecology states. At European level, nearly 12 tonnes of caviar imported illegally have been seized in the past six years (2000-2005) in Switzerland and in the 25 EU countries, according to Traffic, a specialised non-governmental organisation.