Caspian states to mull fishing ban
By Nigar Orujova
Baku will host the 33rd meeting of the Commission on Sea bioresources of the Caspian Sea on April 24-25, Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry spokesman Irada Ibrahimova said on Friday.
The meeting will be held at the level of the heads of the ministries and committees of fisheries.
According to the agenda, the participants consider the embezzlement of fishing quotas, work done on artificial fish-breeding and protection of fish resources in 2011-2012, submit reports on the current status of fish stocks as a result of marine expeditions and scientific-researches, consider total allowable catch of aquatic bioresources in the Caspian Sea and its national distribution.
There are about 141 fish species registered in the Caspian Sea, and the main fishery in the region, the sturgeon fishery, is operated only with the Caspian Sea resources. Some 90 percent of the popular black and red caviar sold all over the world comes from the Caspian Sea.
According to the Iranian international scientific research institute, sturgeon fish stock, which is characteristic only for the Caspian Sea, has shrunk by 25-30 percent and if the situation does not change the population of sturgeon will perish in 2021.
In 2010, the presidents of the Caspian Sea states inked an agreement to stop fishing up sturgeon in the sea for a period of five years.
Sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea was allowed only for scientific research purposes in 2012. The decision was passed at a meeting of the water and biological resources commission with the participation of representatives Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkmenistan and Iran.
It is planned to construct a sturgeon breeding farm on the Caspian Sea shore with the subsequent processing and obtaining caviar in Turkmenistan by February 2015 official Turkmen source reported in January 2013.
The annual production capacity of the complex is expected to increase to 100 tons of sturgeon meat, two tons of sturgeon caviar, 40 tons of smoked fish and 10 million pieces of various kinds of canned fish.
The Framework Convention adopted in the Iranian capital in 2003 was the first legally binding regional agreement signed by all the five Caspian littoral states, laying out general requirements and an institutional mechanism for environmental protection in the resource-rich Caspian region.