The Changing Dynamics of Kazakhstan’s Fisheries Sector: From the Early Soviet Era to the Twenty-First Century

Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic that is now independent, lies near the center of arid Eurasia. Its sparse hydrographic network includes a small number of large rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, many ponds and smaller streams, as well as littoral zones bordering the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea. A diverse fisheries sector, initially based on wild fish capture and later including aquaculture, developed in these waters during the Soviet era, when animal agriculture was unable to meet the protein needs of Soviet citizens. The sector, which was originally centered on the Volga–Caspian basin, was tightly managed by Moscow and benefitted from coordinated investments in research, infrastructure, and human resources, as well as policies to increase the consumption of fish products. Independence in 1991 administered a political and economic shock that disrupted these relationships. Kazakhstan’s wild fish harvests plummeted by more than two-thirds, and aquaculture collapsed to just 3% of its previous level. Per capita consumption of fish products also declined, as did processing capacity. Favorable recent policies to define fishing rights, incentivize investments, prevent illegal fishing, and make stocking more effective have helped to reverse these trends and stabilize the sector. Continued recovery will require additional steps to manage water resources sustainably, prioritize the use of water for fish habitats, and minimize the effects of climate change. This comprehensive assessment of Kazakhstan’s fisheries sector over the past century provides the basis to understand how long-term dynamic interactions of the environment with the political economy influence fisheries in Eurasia’s largest country

The Changing Dynamics of Kazakhstan’s Fisheries Sector: From the Early Soviet Era to the Twenty-First Century

Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic that is now independent, lies near the center of arid Eurasia. Its sparse hydrographic network includes a small number of large rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, many ponds and smaller streams, as well as littoral zones bordering the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea. A diverse fisheries sector, initially based on wild fish capture and later including aquaculture, developed in these waters during the Soviet era, when animal agriculture was unable to meet the protein needs of Soviet citizens. The sector, which was originally centered on the Volga–Caspian basin, was tightly managed by Moscow and benefitted from coordinated investments in research, infrastructure, and human resources, as well as policies to increase the consumption of fish products. Independence in 1991 administered a political and economic shock that disrupted these relationships. Kazakhstan’s wild fish harvests plummeted by more than two-thirds, and aquaculture collapsed to just 3% of its previous level. Per capita consumption of fish products also declined, as did processing capacity. Favorable recent policies to define fishing rights, incentivize investments, prevent illegal fishing, and make stocking more effective have helped to reverse these trends and stabilize the sector. Continued recovery will require additional steps to manage water resources sustainably, prioritize the use of water for fish habitats, and minimize the effects of climate change. This comprehensive assessment of Kazakhstan’s fisheries sector over the past century provides the basis to understand how long-term dynamic interactions of the environment with the political economy influence fisheries in Eurasia’s largest country

Re-Establishing Naturally Reproducing Sturgeon Populations in the Caspian Basin: A Wicked Problem in the Ural River

Although Eurasia’s Caspian basin once supported the world’s richest and most diverse complex of sturgeon species, recent human activities have decimated populations of these ecologically and economically important fish. All five anadromous Caspian sturgeon species are critically endangered, and the potamodromous sterlet is also threatened. The precipitous decline of these species is due to a combination of factors that includes illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing; destruction of feeding and spawning habitat; water pollution; and the environmental consequences of climate change. International efforts are currently underway to re-establish sustained naturally reproducing sturgeon populations in the basin. Here, we update and review the status of sturgeon in the Caspian Sea with emphasis on the northern basin and the inflowing Volga and Ural rivers. We then focus on efforts to restore sturgeon in the Ural, which originates in Russia and flows through Kazakhstan before entering the Caspian Sea. With nearly ideal hydrological conditions for sturgeon, the Ural is the basin’s sole remaining river that allows migrating sturgeon unimpeded access to potentially productive spawning grounds. The challenge of re-establishing sturgeon in the Ural River exhibits the classical characteristics of wicked problems: ambiguous definitions, changing assumptions and unanticipated consequences, tradeoffs and economic dependencies, an incomplete and contradictory knowledge base, and no straightforward pathway toward a final solution. This challenge is examined here for the first time from the perspective of its wicked dynamics, with consideration given to approaches that have proven effective elsewhere in resolving wicked environmental problems