Black Gold Comeback

In the the years preceding the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the dining tables of the Pahlavi court in Tehran were piled high with the freshest beluga caviar, though the Shah himself was known to loathe the stuff. Consumed in the region for hundreds of years, beluga and other caviar varieties have long been prized and, when exported, carry a commensurate price tag. In duty-free shops in Europe, top-quality sturgeon roe can sell for nearly $1,500 for 250 grams. Like oil, caviar has been black gold to Iran and its Caspian neighbors.

Now, the five countries that border the Caspian Sea — the world’s premier producers of caviar — have taken a critical step toward protecting the ancient fish that is at the center of a modern economic and environmental dispute. In launching a coordinated, science-based program for managing and preserving sturgeon stocks — replacing the competing national systems of past years — Iran and four former Soviet republics also met international requirements for proceeding with this year’s caviar harvest.

“Five spoons dip into the pot, but how many spoonfuls are there?” mused a caviar exporter quoted by an official of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, known as CITES. Holding those spoons as they divide the Caspian’s wild sturgeon with Iran are Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. “In a region where fish stocks were once a carefully guarded state secret, and where there is still no comprehensive political agreement over how to share the Caspian Sea and its resources, this breakthrough on sturgeon management marks a dramatic step toward transparency and cooperation,” says Jim Armstrong, deputy secretary-general of CITES. Under the unified system, the region’s governments can demonstrate that “sturgeon numbers are indeed stable or, in some cases, increasing,” says Willem Wijnstekers, the agency’s chief. And, he adds, the resumption of caviar sales will bring in much-needed funding “so that the hatcheries that are so vital to the sturgeon’s long-term survival can be expanded.”

Noting that the conflict that came to a head in Paris last June — when CITES halted the legal caviar trade by Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in a dispute over conservation measures — is not over, Wijnstekers says that “greater efforts are needed to combat illegal fishing and corruption.” While Iran was not subject to the ban because it had a functioning national system, it has nevertheless joined the regional effort.

The Caspian accounts for about 90% of the world’s caviar. While official catch levels peaked at about 30,000 tons in the late 1970s, myriad factors — including reduced river flow, destruction of spawning sites, poaching, organized crime, corruption and illicit trade — have contributed to a decline in the past 20 years. Before the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, that country and Iran controlled the world caviar market. They invested heavily in maintaining fish stocks, and tracking the source of any shipment was straightforward. In the post-Soviet era, though, that system collapsed and private entrepreneurs moved in.

The Caspian countries have until June 20 to set up a long-term survey program and to boost their efforts in combating illegal harvesting and export, as well as in regulating their domestic trade, which also includes sturgeon meat. The 2002 export quota will be 9.6% lower than the 2001 levels, totaling some 142 tons of caviar from five sturgeon species. The legal trade is estimated at about $100 million a year — a figure believed to have been dwarfed at least 10 or 12 times over in recent years by the illegal catch in the four former Soviet republics. In the first post-Soviet decade, poaching evolved into a lucrative, high-stakes business, with abundant illegal canneries and “caviar Mafias” in places like the Russian republic of Dagestan.

Some of that caviar, CITES says, has found its way to the United Arab Emirates, where unscrupulous dealers — taking advantage of the country’s business-friendly climate — have re-exported it. Unsatisfied with the U.A.E.’s response to the problem — involving an estimated $21 million in illegal caviar in the first 10 months of last year — CITES has suspended all wildlife trade with the Persian Gulf state.

Caviar, experts say, should always be judged by quality and taste, not price. One price that would be too high to pay, though, would be the extinction of the sturgeon, considered the world’s most valuable wildlife resource.