Iran fully supports a proposal to introduce a five-year moratorium on sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea, the Novosti-Azerbaijan news agency said on Wednesday, quoting an Iranian fisheries official.
"Iran fully supports proposals on a five-year moratorium on sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea and is ready to continue work for the protection of the Caspian Sea water resources," Ali Askar Mujahideen, head of the Iran Fisheries Organization, told reporters after a session of the Commission on Aquatic Bioresources of the Caspian Sea in the Azeri capital.
A moratorium on commercial sturgeon fishing, the use of quotas for 2010-2011 and the determination of fishing quotas for 2012 are the main topics of the meeting of the five littoral states of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Azerbaijan in Baku.
The moratorium aims to restore biodiversity in the Caspian Sea.
Mujahideen said this year Iran has fully stopped sturgeon fishing, although the country has a quota to catch 400 tons.
Mujahideen also said that Iran has grown and released 200 million fish of various species into the sea in 2011, including 10 million sturgeons.
In the meantime, Kazakhstan proposed introducing a ten-year moratorium on sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea.
“The calculations made by our scientists show that the population of sturgeon fishes will rise by more than 10 million, if sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea is suspended for ten years,” said Bauyrzhan Zhumazhanov, chairman of the fisheries committee at the Kazakhstan Agriculture Ministry.
