A BAN on the international trade in wild caviar was imposed yesterday by the United Nations agency that protects vulnerable species.

Global demand has created a huge black market which threatens the endangered sturgeon from which the delicacy is taken. Dealers said that those who refused to eat the farmed variety would fuel the illegal trade. This is already worth about five times more than the legal market, at around £500 million.

A spokesman for Harrods, which sells about 50kg (110lb) a year, said: “The black market trade will pick up. There are so many people out there who like wild caviar and won’t be able to see themselves without it. There will always be demand.”

The statement from Cites, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, referred to natural habitats shared by several nations, mainly the Caspian Sea. It said: “As of now it is not possible to export caviar and other sturgeon products from shared stocks.”

It added that fishing quotas for sturgeon, proposed for this year by leading exporting nations, “may not fully reflect the reductions in stocks or make sufficient allowance for illegal fishing”.

British suppliers said that the ban would be impossible to enforce. WG White, an importer that supplies Conran restaurants and clients including Michael Winner, said that it supported the ban from an environmental point of view.

But John Cowan, its general manager, said: “It’s one man in a rowing boat with a fishing net. How are they going to police it? There are willing buyers of contraband caviar and people will pay for it whatever the price. Most wouldn’t be able to taste the difference between wild and farmed but there is a snob value attached.”

Imperial Caviar UK, based in Surrey, said market forces could drive up the price of farmed caviar, which it also supplied. A spokesman added, however: “There are always private clients who insist on a certain type of caviar. It has to be Iranian. It has to be beluga.” Other stockists were keen to play down the ban, describing it as a temporary suspension and insisting they had sufficient stocks. Fortnum & Mason said that it would draw from stocks already in the EU.

The ban will affect Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, the main exporters. It came as Russia prepares to celebrate Orthodox Christmas on Saturday and new year on January 14, when feasts often feature black caviar.

Natasha Belyakova, 45, shopping for caviar at a market in central Moscow, said most Russians would ignore the ban. “New year without caviar is impossible. If Europe and America want to ban it, then great, that means there will be more for us.”

Four months ago the US suspended beluga imports because Caspian states were failing to protect the fish. In France, Western Europe’s top caviar market, an estimated 90 per cent of caviar sold is illegal.

BLACK GOLD

Approximately half of the 27 species of sturgeon that produce caviar are endangered because of pollution of breeding grounds and mismanagement of fisheries

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