MOSCOW, Jan. 3 - The global export trade in caviar, the briny eggs of sturgeon that for decades have been one of the world's most exotic and lucrative wildlife products, was abruptly ordered shut down today by the international convention that helps nations manage threatened species.
The global export trade in caviar was abruptly ordered shut down today by the world organization that helps manage threatened species.
The export suspension, called for by the secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or C.I.T.E.S., was described as a temporary measure to compel nations that still export caviar and other sturgeon products to demonstrate that their fishing practices are not driving the remaining fish populations toward extinction.
Exporting nations must "ensure that the exploitation of sturgeon stocks is commercially and environmentally sustainable over the long term," the convention's secretary general, Willem Wijnstekers, said in a statement.
Sturgeon products, legal and illegal, are thought to be worth at least several hundred million dollars each year. But scientists and managers have said for decades that the caviar industry, and the species that drive it, are in jeopardy.
The world's remaining sturgeon fisheries have all suffered from plummeting populations, caused by a combination of dam building, pollution, excessive fishing and unchecked black markets. Several localized extinctions of sturgeon stocks around the world have already occurred, and many other species, including ones in the United States, have been reduced to remnant populations.
The export suspension covers all the principal areas that still export the fish or their eggs, including the Caspian Sea, Siberia's Amur River, and the Black Sea and lower Danube River. It applies to 10 nations that still actively fish and export sturgeon products: Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia, Serbia-Montenegro, Turkmenistan and Ukraine, the convention said.
Under the convention rules, the suspension also requires nations that import the sturgeon products not to admit them until the secretariat lifts the restrictions.
The main importing nations - among them the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland - are all parties to the 169-nation convention and thus expected to follow the order not to import the products to their markets.
"The European Union nations have to, because of their laws," said Susan Lieberman, director of the World Wildlife Fund's global species programs.
Ms. Lieberman said that she also expected the United States - which in 2005 unilaterally banned the importation of products from beluga sturgeon, the most prized species - to accept the new rules, in part because it would make it easier to enforce the laws already on the books.
There was little immediate reaction from the exporters. Russia, which trades heavily in sturgeon products for domestic and foreign markets, is on official holiday for the New Year and Orthodox Christmas celebrations. Its natural resource officials could not be reached.
The C.I.T.E.S. representative for Iran, a large exporter, told Agence France-Presse that the five nations that export from the Caspian basin had been asked questions by the secretariat, and hoped to answer them by Jan. 15. But the representative added that there was a risk that the secretariat would allow no exports in 2006.
There was also no immediate indication of how long it would take for the exporting nations to satisfy the secretariat that their fishing plans were sustainable, and based on both real harvesting and population data.
"We certainly hope that this is temporary, but if the problems are not addressed satisfactorily, it could be a longer time," said the head of the secretariat's science unit, David Morgan.
The secretariat ordered a temporary ban twice before, in 2001 and in 2002, which were lifted when exporting nations agreed to follow stricter conservation measures.
But exporters have not lived up to their previous commitments, and sturgeon populations have continued to fall, leading to the new suspension, said Ellen Pikitch, executive director of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science at the University of Miami. Dr. Pikitch is a co-author of a global survey, published in 2005, that documented sturgeon declines worldwide, and called for immediate and strong measures and public awareness campaigns to protect the remaining fish.
One persistent problem in sturgeon management has been that national quotas and harvest data, which appear impressive on annual ledgers, do not account for widespread poaching. Mr. Morgan said that exporters would have to satisfy the secretariat that their fishing plans accounted for both the real size of the stocks and the total mortality from legal and illegal fishing.
"The parties must be sure that they can demonstrate that there is some relationship between their stock assessment and the catch quotas they set," Mr. Morgan said.
