Given that the UN Security Council has newly voted punitive sanctions against Iran for their “questionable” nuclear weapons program, will Iran’s caviar exports be banned again this time?
By: Ringo Bones
It was made official back in June 9, 2010 that another round of punitive sanctions aimed against Iran over their “questionable” nuclear weapons program. With the UN Security Council voted twelve to two with one abstention in favor of renewed sanctions that are primarily aimed at arms purchases and the freezing of offshore bank assets of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard – rumored to make up a quarter of Iran’s GNP. Given the latest punitive sanctions, what does this mean to Iran’s beluga caviar exports?
There might be some truth to those free-floating rumors that Iranian beluga caviar exports – especially when destined to the United States - is just “too tasty” for a ban to be successfully enforced. Not surprisingly, during the mid 1960s at the height of the Cold War, Volga River Delta-sourced Caspian Sea sturgeon beluga caviar – i.e. Soviet Union caviar – never got the same US government restrictions that got “supposedly” slapped on Cuban cigars. At that time, American gourmets gladly paid 9 US dollars a serving for Soviet beluga caviar.
Fast forward to the 1979 Islamic Revolution that got underway in Iran that resulted in the hostage taking of American citizens who staffed the US Embassy in Tehran had made drastic decline of Iranian exports of beluga caviar to the United States. While in 1987, then US president Ronald Reagan banned all Iranian exports to the US – including beluga caviar (albeit probably in name only) – in response to the “increasingly bellicose behavior” by Iran that included attacks on American forces and American-flagged Kuwaiti ships on the Persian Gulf. Not surprisingly the word bellicose is still inextricably connected to Iran given Tehran’s recent inability to fulfill their obligations as a signatory country of the Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Iranian caviar exports to the US may be in decline, but it is not a result of UN Security Council approved sanctions but due to the inevitable decline of the Caspian Sea beluga caviar after facing over-fishing and pollution challenges. Even though it probably now only forms a minor part of Iran’s overall export one does wonder if Iran’s beluga caviar exports falls under the purview of the Revolutionary Guard? Which is the main reason why America should develop its own homegrown sustainable caviar industry.
Showing posts with label Beluga Caviar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beluga Caviar. Show all posts
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Will A Harvesting and Fishing Moratorium Save the Beluga Caviar?
In the past, harvesting and hunting moratoriums have saved a good number of species from the brink of extinction. Will a well-enforced one eventually save the beluga sturgeon?
By: Ringo Bones
In a Time magazine interview back in 2003, Lisa Speer, senior policy analyst for the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) and a spokeswoman for a surgeon-hugging coalition that calls itself Caviar Emptor said that: “People are going to have to live without beluga caviar for a while if we are going to have any hope of rescuing the species”. Fortunately, a good number of species of this planet which are formerly on the very brink of extinction had been saved via a well-enforced moratorium when it comes to their harvesting and hunting. But will a well-enforced moratorium on beluga caviar harvesting and / or fishing, trade and consumption – given the difficulty of enforcing it due to relative lawlessness of the Caspian Sea region – be enough to save the beluga sturgeon from eventual extinction?
Even though Americans swallow as much as 80% of the world’s production of beluga caviar, US-based environmental groups have petitioned the US Fish and Wildlife Service as far back as the late 1990s to put Russian and Caspian Sea beluga sturgeon on the endangered species list. CITES – the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of flora and fauna – had also since recognized the precarious position of the beluga sturgeon as a species as far back as 1997. Both moves would undoubtedly affect the global consumption beluga caviar that had gained ever-increasing popularity in the post-Cold War era Capitalist West due to the collapse of the former Soviet Union and intensified globalization.
It is not only the increasing demand that’s driving the price – and thus hastening the extinction – of beluga caviar. Acipenser husso – the scientific name of the Caspian Sea sourced Russian beluga sturgeon that is the source of beluga caviar – in other words, the world’s best caviar – are under enormous pressure for sometime now. From overfishing, intensified dam construction during the past 50 years and not to mention pollution caused by the former Soviet republics and other nation-states that use the Caspian Sea as a free sewage system. Worse still, most species of sturgeon are in decline – some types by as much as 90% - and those native to the Caspian Sea are especially doomed unless steps are taken to replenish fish stocks. Like the establishment of beluga sturgeon hatcheries and a well-enforced moratorium on the fishing and harvesting of beluga caviar, not to mention the establishment of an effective clean-up program of the increasingly polluted Caspian Sea and its tributaries.
One aspect of the problem of restoring the beluga sturgeon population is of the nature of the beast itself. Chondrosteans – the class in which sturgeons and its relatives like the paddlefish belong – dates back to more than 400 million years ago around the Devonian Period. Are lucky just to be around today due to the stiff competition that they faced in the name of more “evolved” classes of fish during the reign of the dinosaurs. Clad in bony plates, sturgeons are fierce looking and some can even grow to enormous lengths – up to 6 meters from snout to tail and can easily weigh more than a ton.
Unfortunately, sturgeons mature slowly and some don’t begin reproducing until they are 15 to 25 years old. Worst still, when a female Caspian Sea beluga sturgeon does start ovulating and starts producing more than a million eggs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in the US, the result of her fecundity usually results in a death sentence via caviar harvesting. Which can be a very wasteful way to eat Caspian Sea beluga sturgeon via caviar. The carcasses of the mature female sturgeon are seldom – if ever – eaten once the roe is harvested for caviar processing. If you ask me, it is about as wasteful as consuming shark fin soup.
By: Ringo Bones
In a Time magazine interview back in 2003, Lisa Speer, senior policy analyst for the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) and a spokeswoman for a surgeon-hugging coalition that calls itself Caviar Emptor said that: “People are going to have to live without beluga caviar for a while if we are going to have any hope of rescuing the species”. Fortunately, a good number of species of this planet which are formerly on the very brink of extinction had been saved via a well-enforced moratorium when it comes to their harvesting and hunting. But will a well-enforced moratorium on beluga caviar harvesting and / or fishing, trade and consumption – given the difficulty of enforcing it due to relative lawlessness of the Caspian Sea region – be enough to save the beluga sturgeon from eventual extinction?
Even though Americans swallow as much as 80% of the world’s production of beluga caviar, US-based environmental groups have petitioned the US Fish and Wildlife Service as far back as the late 1990s to put Russian and Caspian Sea beluga sturgeon on the endangered species list. CITES – the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of flora and fauna – had also since recognized the precarious position of the beluga sturgeon as a species as far back as 1997. Both moves would undoubtedly affect the global consumption beluga caviar that had gained ever-increasing popularity in the post-Cold War era Capitalist West due to the collapse of the former Soviet Union and intensified globalization.
It is not only the increasing demand that’s driving the price – and thus hastening the extinction – of beluga caviar. Acipenser husso – the scientific name of the Caspian Sea sourced Russian beluga sturgeon that is the source of beluga caviar – in other words, the world’s best caviar – are under enormous pressure for sometime now. From overfishing, intensified dam construction during the past 50 years and not to mention pollution caused by the former Soviet republics and other nation-states that use the Caspian Sea as a free sewage system. Worse still, most species of sturgeon are in decline – some types by as much as 90% - and those native to the Caspian Sea are especially doomed unless steps are taken to replenish fish stocks. Like the establishment of beluga sturgeon hatcheries and a well-enforced moratorium on the fishing and harvesting of beluga caviar, not to mention the establishment of an effective clean-up program of the increasingly polluted Caspian Sea and its tributaries.
One aspect of the problem of restoring the beluga sturgeon population is of the nature of the beast itself. Chondrosteans – the class in which sturgeons and its relatives like the paddlefish belong – dates back to more than 400 million years ago around the Devonian Period. Are lucky just to be around today due to the stiff competition that they faced in the name of more “evolved” classes of fish during the reign of the dinosaurs. Clad in bony plates, sturgeons are fierce looking and some can even grow to enormous lengths – up to 6 meters from snout to tail and can easily weigh more than a ton.
Unfortunately, sturgeons mature slowly and some don’t begin reproducing until they are 15 to 25 years old. Worst still, when a female Caspian Sea beluga sturgeon does start ovulating and starts producing more than a million eggs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in the US, the result of her fecundity usually results in a death sentence via caviar harvesting. Which can be a very wasteful way to eat Caspian Sea beluga sturgeon via caviar. The carcasses of the mature female sturgeon are seldom – if ever – eaten once the roe is harvested for caviar processing. If you ask me, it is about as wasteful as consuming shark fin soup.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Kootenai Sturgeon Conservation: A Model for Saving the Beluga Caviar?
As one of the success stories of the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s species conservation program, will the Kootenai Tribe’s white sturgeon restocking program be used to save the beluga caviar?
By: Ringo Bones
Unlike that of the beluga sturgeon’s home waters where the fish has to contend with the threat of pollution and overfishing, the white sturgeon - scientific name: Acipenser transmontanus - in the continental United States has only faced one major threat during the past 40 years. Namely the extensive dam construction of its river ecosystem. Since the construction of the Libby Dam a little over 40 years ago the white sturgeon’s natural habitat had been slowly – but drastically altered – during the past decades. The Libby Dam held back the vital spring floods that cleared the silt accumulation in the Kootenai River, depriving the white sturgeon of its ideal spawning conditions. Hence the slow but inevitable decline of the species.
Enter the Kootenai Tribe’s white sturgeon conservation program in the state of Idaho. Listed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as one of their success stories when it comes to species conservation drastically affected by changes in its ecosystem. Back in September 6, 1994 when the US Fish and Wildlife Service as placed the Kootenai River white sturgeon in their endangered species list, the Kootenai Tribe had already initiated the Kootenai River White Sturgeon Study and Conservation Aquaculture Project four years before. Part of the Kootenai Tribe’s program to save the white sturgeon was to preserve the genetic variability of the population when they started rebuilding the natural age class structure with hatchery-reared sturgeon, and prevent its extinction while measures are implemented to restore the natural production of the species.
Even though the program is an unqualified success, it looks like the Kootenai River white sturgeon are now dependent on human intervention – like the Kootenai Tribe’s sturgeon restocking program – due to the dam’s effects on the river ecosystem. But is this method viable when used to save the dwindling beluga sturgeon population in the Caspian Sea region?
The Russian or beluga sturgeon – scientific name: Acipenser husso – has been heading to extinction not only ever since many caviar connoisseurs swear that it has the best caviar - hence the overfishing - but also of the extensive dam construction of its native river habitat and pollution. Consuming its eggs as a delicacy – from my perspective even though I indulge in it from time to time – is about as wasteful as fining sharks and throwing the carcasses overboard just for the shark fin soup. But given that sturgeon roe – especially beluga caviar – is a very lucrative commodity, wouldn’t it be better if we intervene through establishing a beluga sturgeon hatchery program to bring the numbers back up?
Given the success of the Kootenai Tribe’s restocking program, it does seem viable that using such methods, the number of beluga sturgeon could be increased to numbers that its survival as a species would not be threatened. Despite extensive commercial roe harvesting. But given that there are now very few Russian sturgeon or beluga sturgeon around, will this ever involve caviar-fishing / caviar harvesting moratorium like the one planned on blue-fin tuna by CITES this year?
Maybe a fishing moratorium will play a part in bring back up the beluga sturgeon population, but it will be very hard to enforce given that the Caspian Sea is surrounded by other nations beside Russia. Like Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iran. All of them have varying commercial interest in commercial caviar harvesting. Just imagine the red tape involved? And given that the various rivers in the Caspian Sea region that have served as a vital spawning ground for the beluga sturgeon, namely the Volga River, the Ural River and Kur River are now full of dams. Human intervention in the form of fish hatcheries – similar to that in the Kootenai Tribe’s white sturgeon conservation program - might be a necessity in order to keep the beluga sturgeon from going the way of the dodo.
Even the writing team in the world of Star Trek were optimistic enough to foresee through conjecture that beluga caviar had survived well into the 24th Century. Like the fictionalized account of an episode in Star Trek: the Next Generation where Captain Jean-Luc Picard served beluga caviar to a visiting high-ranking Klingon official. Is this reason enough to be hopeful over the long-term future of the beluga caviar?
By: Ringo Bones
Unlike that of the beluga sturgeon’s home waters where the fish has to contend with the threat of pollution and overfishing, the white sturgeon - scientific name: Acipenser transmontanus - in the continental United States has only faced one major threat during the past 40 years. Namely the extensive dam construction of its river ecosystem. Since the construction of the Libby Dam a little over 40 years ago the white sturgeon’s natural habitat had been slowly – but drastically altered – during the past decades. The Libby Dam held back the vital spring floods that cleared the silt accumulation in the Kootenai River, depriving the white sturgeon of its ideal spawning conditions. Hence the slow but inevitable decline of the species.
Enter the Kootenai Tribe’s white sturgeon conservation program in the state of Idaho. Listed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as one of their success stories when it comes to species conservation drastically affected by changes in its ecosystem. Back in September 6, 1994 when the US Fish and Wildlife Service as placed the Kootenai River white sturgeon in their endangered species list, the Kootenai Tribe had already initiated the Kootenai River White Sturgeon Study and Conservation Aquaculture Project four years before. Part of the Kootenai Tribe’s program to save the white sturgeon was to preserve the genetic variability of the population when they started rebuilding the natural age class structure with hatchery-reared sturgeon, and prevent its extinction while measures are implemented to restore the natural production of the species.
Even though the program is an unqualified success, it looks like the Kootenai River white sturgeon are now dependent on human intervention – like the Kootenai Tribe’s sturgeon restocking program – due to the dam’s effects on the river ecosystem. But is this method viable when used to save the dwindling beluga sturgeon population in the Caspian Sea region?
The Russian or beluga sturgeon – scientific name: Acipenser husso – has been heading to extinction not only ever since many caviar connoisseurs swear that it has the best caviar - hence the overfishing - but also of the extensive dam construction of its native river habitat and pollution. Consuming its eggs as a delicacy – from my perspective even though I indulge in it from time to time – is about as wasteful as fining sharks and throwing the carcasses overboard just for the shark fin soup. But given that sturgeon roe – especially beluga caviar – is a very lucrative commodity, wouldn’t it be better if we intervene through establishing a beluga sturgeon hatchery program to bring the numbers back up?
Given the success of the Kootenai Tribe’s restocking program, it does seem viable that using such methods, the number of beluga sturgeon could be increased to numbers that its survival as a species would not be threatened. Despite extensive commercial roe harvesting. But given that there are now very few Russian sturgeon or beluga sturgeon around, will this ever involve caviar-fishing / caviar harvesting moratorium like the one planned on blue-fin tuna by CITES this year?
Maybe a fishing moratorium will play a part in bring back up the beluga sturgeon population, but it will be very hard to enforce given that the Caspian Sea is surrounded by other nations beside Russia. Like Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iran. All of them have varying commercial interest in commercial caviar harvesting. Just imagine the red tape involved? And given that the various rivers in the Caspian Sea region that have served as a vital spawning ground for the beluga sturgeon, namely the Volga River, the Ural River and Kur River are now full of dams. Human intervention in the form of fish hatcheries – similar to that in the Kootenai Tribe’s white sturgeon conservation program - might be a necessity in order to keep the beluga sturgeon from going the way of the dodo.
Even the writing team in the world of Star Trek were optimistic enough to foresee through conjecture that beluga caviar had survived well into the 24th Century. Like the fictionalized account of an episode in Star Trek: the Next Generation where Captain Jean-Luc Picard served beluga caviar to a visiting high-ranking Klingon official. Is this reason enough to be hopeful over the long-term future of the beluga caviar?
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