To catch or not to catch the Caspian sturgeon?
The Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries offers coastal countries – Baku, Tehran, Astana and Ashgabat – to avoid fishing sturgeons in the Caspian Sea for commercial goals for at least ten years.
Last year, the Caspian states discussed the issue of imposing a ban on catching Caspian sturgeons for a period of one year. However, The Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries supposes that in view of the complexity of the problem of restoring the sturgeon population in the Caspian Sea, it is necessary to abandon sturgeon fishing for a period of ten years at least.
According to experts, in addition to restoring the population through artificial reproduction, a set of measures related to water supply and fodder base for sturgeons are necessary to be implemented.
Turkmenistan pays high priority to issues of ecology, and especially, the ecology of the Caspian Sea. The joint documents that regulate the issues of ecology and rational use of marine bio resources were adopted at the initiative of Ashgabat. Moreover, facilities for artificial reproduction of sturgeon at the Turkmen coast are developing as well as issues on the purification of seawater are working out.
It is no coincidence that specialists in the field of nature protection consider the Turkmen coast of the Caspian to be the most environmentally friendly.
