FEATURE - Poaching, smuggling blackens Balkan caviar market
Date: 22-Apr-03
Country: BULGARIA
Author: Radu Marinas and Galina Sabeva
They travel for hours by bus or train from the Danube Delta on the Black Sea to sell caviar, the epitome of gastronomic luxury once enjoyed only by the communist elite, to the Romanian capital's new yuppie crowd.
For connoisseurs, they are a chance to buy one of the world's most expensive delicacies at $55 a kg (2.2 lb), a fraction of its market price. For Romania and fellow European Union candidate Bulgaria, they are the enemy.
The two Balkan neighbours, the world's third and fourth caviar exporters after Russia and China, must clean up an industry plagued by smuggling, poaching and illegal trading by the time they join the EU in 2007.
Their roadmap - a document detailing work to be done before EU accession - dictates steps that must be taken to battle illegal fishing by 2005.
Romania must introduce measures to protect caviar-producing sturgeon, which has been brought to the brink of extinction by intensive poaching, and fight illegal sales and exports.
Its Rocaviar Association of Caviar Exporters says widespread smuggling prevents honest exporters from establishing a foothold in other EU markets and in the United States.
According to Rocaviar, about two tonnes of Romanian caviar is smuggled each year.
Brussels has urged Romania to strengthen control of its Danube fishing activities and hire more guards along the river but little has been done.
"Police are helpless. They caught only a few smugglers and paraded them on local television stations as if they were serial killers," said Romcaviar head Dan Rusan.
PREDATING THE DINOSAURS
An ancient species predating the dinosaurs, sturgeon's numbers have declined by up to 70 percent in the past century, prompting U.S. conservation groups to call for a global ban on trade in beluga in favour of farmed caviar.
At least one Bulgarian was happy to oblige.
"The future is in farmed caviar. It can help preserve wildlife and keep caviar fans happy," said Bulgaria's caviar baron, Atanas Chobanov, who last year exported around half of the country's 1,720 kg (3,792 lb) of caviar sold abroad.
His 800 square metre (8,610 square feet) sturgeon-breeding farm, built in 1997 in the southern village of Bolyartsi, is the first of its kind in the small Balkan state. Its eight fish pools and buildings are surrounded by concrete walls and guarded by dogs.
Romania has long been a leading caviar exporter, sending abroad four out of seven tonnes produced annually in the last few years. Bulgaria will export 1.74 tonnes in 2003.
"Until 1989, caviar in Bulgaria was only for the communist elite and exports were negligible," said a local trader.
Romania sells caviar at about $350 a kg mainly on the EU market - mostly France and Germany which sometimes re-export it to the United States.
More than 90 percent of the last year's sales from Bulgaria went directly to the U.S. at $300-400 per kg. Caviar sells for up to $2,000 per kg on the American market, one of the world's largest consumers of the delicacy.
ENDANGERED BELUGA
Export quotas have been set by CITES, a U.N. treaty that protects endangered species, to ensure the sturgeon's survival.
The beluga sturgeon, whose eggs are the most sought-after variety of caviar, inhabits only the Caspian and Black Seas and spawns in the rivers flowing into them.
Bulgarian officials believe that strict adherence to export quotas set by CITES and re-stocking programmes for the Danube will prevent further endangerment of sturgeon.
The Environment Ministry in Sofia, which distributes the export quota among the country's caviar exporters, requires them to restock up to 100 sturgeon for each kilo of caviar exported.
"Restocking should support both preserving the sturgeon population and the caviar exports," said Stoimen Yolchev, a senior inspector at the National Agency on Fishing and Aquacultures.
Romania used to produce 23 tonnes of caviar a year in the 1930s but pollution, over-fishing and poachers have
