Caspian states agree on the sea’s decline, but still keep separate fish data

The five Caspian states spent the last week of September saying the same thing in different forums: the sea is shrinking, its fish and seals are under pressure, and no state can deal with this alone. In Tehran, the seventh Conference of the Parties to the Tehran Convention culminated in a high-level session on 23 September with a call to move “from fragmented information to shared data”. In Azerbaijan, the UN announced the start of a donor-funded project to monitor pollution and biodiversity. And Russia’s Agriculture Ministry proposed keeping one of the sea’s traditional commercial fish off limits for another year. Each step is sensible. Together they show a region that agrees on the diagnosis but still collects its evidence nationally.

What COP7 decided to say

The Tehran Convention on the protection of the Caspian’s marine environment was signed in 2003 by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan. Its secretariat is hosted by the UN Environment Programme. According to Tasnim, Iran organised expert-level meetings from 20 to 22 September, followed by a high-level session on 23 September at which decisions on agreed documents were to be taken. The UN resident coordinator in Iran, Christine Weigand, noted that 2026 marks 20 years since the convention entered into force.

The host’s message was ambitious. Shina Ansari, head of Iran’s Department of Environment, told delegates that the five states must move “from legal commitments to practical action, from fragmented information to shared data, and from national monitoring to coordinated regional monitoring”, the Tehran Times reported. She listed land-based pollution, habitat degradation, pressure on biological resources, climate change and fluctuating water levels as problems no single country can address. She proposed joint monitoring systems, regular ecosystem assessments, joint preparedness for pollution incidents and shared databases using remote sensing and modelling.

Ansari also used the platform for a political point. She said that US and Israeli attacks on Iran this year had damaged infrastructure and protected areas, and called explosions at fuel depots in Tehran and strikes on oil facilities at Assaluyeh “ecocide”. Those sites are not on the Caspian, and the claim is Iran’s; the published reports do not record a response from other delegations. The available coverage of COP7 comes largely from Iranian media, and the reports reviewed here do not describe the decisions adopted.

Donor money arrives, for three of the five

Alongside the convention, the Global Environment Facility has funded a project called “Blueing the Caspian Sea”. According to Business Turkmenistan, citing the GEF, it was approved on 26 January 2026 with an $11.74m grant and covers Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. The national track is implemented by the World Bank and executed by the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS); UNEP runs the regional track. The UN resident coordinator in Azerbaijan, Dmitry Shlapachenko, said, as Azernews reported on 22 September, that recruitment of staff would begin soon, and that the aim is stronger pollution monitoring, biodiversity protection and regional cooperation. He added that the volume of water flowing into the Caspian has fallen by 10–15 per cent in recent years.

The project is modest in size, and its coverage is telling. Russia and Iran, which together control the Volga inflow and the southern coast, are outside it. It will build national monitoring capacity in three states, which helps, but it does not by itself create the five-country data system Ansari called for.

Fisheries: national bans, shared stocks

The fisheries record shows both what works and where cooperation stops. Russia’s Agriculture Ministry has proposed extending its ban on vobla, a Caspian roach, through December 2027, Baird Maritime reports; public consultation closes on 13 October. Vobla catches fell from 18,000 tonnes in 1990 to 300 tonnes in 2024, according to VNIRO figures. Fishing has been restricted since 2023 and fully banned since 2025. Russia’s fisheries agency says the measures “are beginning to produce results”, helped by a 2026 spring flood on the Volga of 121 cubic kilometres, the highest in five years. The head of the Caspian Fisheries Research Institute said the average vobla length rose from 14 cm in 2022–2023 to 17 cm in 2025, and argued the ban should last at least five years.

That good year on the Volga sits awkwardly with the UN’s figure of a 10–15 per cent fall in inflow in recent years. Both can be true, since one spring flood does not reverse a trend, but the discrepancy shows why common hydrological data matter.

Sturgeon are managed jointly, at least in name. At the intergovernmental commission on Caspian aquatic bioresources in Ashgabat in November 2025, all five states agreed to extend the moratorium on commercial sturgeon fishing through 2026, allowing catches only for science and artificial reproduction. Russia’s deputy fisheries chief, Vasily Sokolov, said then that each country uses its own research methodology and that falling sea levels are hurting sturgeon food supply and slowing recovery. In September he returned to the theme at the Global Fishery Forum, where participants proposed a unified database within the commission and a digital “twin” of the main fisheries, including sturgeon, Report.az reported.

Kazakhstan’s numbers show how the decline is redrawing the industry. Vadim Ni of the Save the Caspian Sea movement told Inbusiness, as cited by The Astana Times, that Atyrau region accounted for about 13,650 tonnes, nearly 40 per cent of the country’s catch, in 2006, but only about 9,480 tonnes, just over 20 per cent, in 2024, as shallow northern waters made fishing harder. Mangystau’s catch rose from 315 tonnes to almost 5,000 tonnes in 2025. Ni cautions that overfishing and poaching also play a part, so the shifts cannot be attributed to water levels alone.

The sea itself

The physical trend is not in dispute. Seyid Safarov of Azerbaijan’s Institute of Geography told Azernews that the sea has fallen by about 2.5 metres over 30 years, more than 1.5 metres in coastal areas, and now stands at its lowest level in 48 years. The Astana Times cites a forecast by researchers from Bremen, Giessen and Utrecht in which the level falls by about nine metres by 2100 and the surface area shrinks by 23 to 34 per cent, depending on the emissions scenario.

What to watch

• Publication of COP7’s decisions, and whether they include a binding data-sharing or joint-monitoring protocol rather than declarations.
• Whether the bioresources commission adopts the proposed unified database, and whether it extends the sturgeon moratorium beyond 2026.
• The final Russian order on vobla after consultation closes on 13 October.
• Whether Russia and Iran join a GEF or UNEP programme on the same terms as the three eastern and western littoral states.

The Caspian’s governments are not short of institutions: a convention, a secretariat, a fisheries commission and now a GEF project. What they lack is a common set of numbers. Until that changes, the most effective conservation measures will remain national ones, and the shared problem of a falling sea will be measured five different ways.

Sources

• Tasnim News Agency — Iran Hosting COP7 Focusing on Caspian Sea Environmental Challenges
• Tehran Times — “Five countries, one ecosystem, one future”: COP7 calls for stronger Caspian Sea cooperation
• Tehran Times — UN coordinator calls for joint action to protect Caspian Sea
• Azernews — UN to launch project aimed at protecting Caspian Sea
• Business Turkmenistan — UNEP, UNOPS to Implement Blueing the Caspian Sea Project
• Baird Maritime — Russia proposes extending Caspian Sea vobla fishing ban through 2027
• Turkmenportal — The ban on commercial sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea will be extended until 2026
• Report.az — Proposal made to create unified database, digital twin of fishing industry for Caspian Sea
• The Astana Times — Caspian Sea’s Decline Raises Water Security Concerns As Kazakhstan Strengthens Management
• Azernews — Caspian Sea falls to lowest level in 48 years as experts warn of environmental and economic risks