Russian Minister Urges Control Over Caviar Trade

December 1, 2005

Release from: Guy Faulconbridge
Reuters

MOSCOW - Russia should set up a special black caviar and sturgeon monopoly to fight poaching and prevent the extinction of the endangered fish, Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev said on Thursday.

"We need to pass a law on the trade in sturgeon and its caviar without delay, take fundamental decisions and bring in a state monopoly," Gordeyev told a cabinet meeting on the fishing industry, Interfax news agency reported. The idea of creating a caviar monopoly has been floated several times since the fall of the Soviet Union as a way to bring order to a trade dominated by criminal groups.

The cabinet took no decision but Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov asked Gordeyev to work on his proposals.

The tsars created a state monopoly for the sale of caviar and the Bolsheviks continued the profitable business, but since communism collapsed, sturgeon have faced the twin threat of poaching and rising pollution.

Most of the world's sturgeon spawn in the rivers that flow into the Caspian Sea and their unfertilised eggs -- black caviar -- are sold by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Russia.

Beluga Caviar, a symbol of ostentatious dining and luxury, costs 24,000 roubles ($834) a kg in Moscow markets but sells for 3,000 pounds ($5,165) in London.

The value of caviar has made the sturgeon a focus of criminal groups, which control poaching gangs and illegal caviar sales in Russia and abroad.

Washington banned imports of Beluga caviar this year because of concerns the fish may die out in the wild. Numbers of beluga have fallen by 90 percent in the past 20 years, experts say.

ILLEGAL FISHING

Environmental groups urged the government to crack down on illegal fishing.

"I am not convinced creating a caviar monopoly is the only solution," said Shannon Crownover, programme manager for Caviar Emptor in Kazakhstan, a group working to protect the sturgeon.

"To save the species you need to develop a recovery plan and to crack down on illegal fishing and there has not been much sign of that on the ground."

Gordeyev said the official sturgeon quota in Russia was 250 tonnes, or about enough to fill 10 long trucks. He said massive poaching of sturgeon could lead to the extinction of the fish.

"But at least 10 to 15 times more than that is sold on the market," he said.

The cabinet on Thursday also discussed the decline of the fishing industry, and Fradkov said Russians were feeling the pinch of less fish in their diet.

Fish catches have declined every year since the end of the 1980s, according to material presented to the cabinet by the Agriculture Ministry, which said the 2004 catch had declined to the level of 1960.