Paris

Police, researchers and fishery managers are to step up their battle to rescue the sturgeons of the Caspian Sea, whose famous eggs account for 90% of the world's caviar.

Nowhere to hide: an illegal trade in caviar is threatening sturgeons in the Caspian Sea.

The illegal harvest of the fish and their valuable eggs — which is thought to exceed the legal catch by an order of magnitude — is depleting supplies of the delicacy.

But conservationists say that the smart use of DNA markers to locate the precise origins of illegally traded caviar could improve policing and allow the sturgeons, including the beluga (Huso huso), to survive.

Last month Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan — three of the five Caspian Sea states — agreed on a new 12-month action plan to save the sturgeons, at a Paris meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Turkmenistan is expected to adhere to the agreement, and CITES declared the fifth state, Iran, exempt because of the quality of its existing sturgeon-management programme.

The states agreed to collaborate with CITES and Interpol, the international network of police. Scientists in the region plan to develop a comprehensive set of the DNA markers that locate the precise source of caviar. The states also pledged to negotiate details of a sustainability programme.

The agreement calls for the cancellation of the autumn 2001 caviar harvest, with export only permitted of fish eggs left over from the spring, on pain of a total caviar-export ban next year. But observers question whether this will halt illegal harvesting.

Sabri Zain, an official at the World Wildlife Fund, warns that any ban on legal exports would weaken pressure on governments to clamp down on illegal fishing and trading. Zain wants to see a labelling system to identify legal caviar.

Scientists and fishery experts meet this week at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to discuss ways of securing the fish's future.

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