Kazakh ecologists and environmental activists worry that the Caspian Sea’s levels are set to decline further.

Aktau, Kazakhstan – During his childhood, Adilbek Kozybakov’s mother always kept a jar of sturgeon caviar in the fridge.

Each day, she would spoon it on small pieces of bread and butter for him and his siblings. Caviar would keep them in good health, she believed.

Kozybakov did not like it.

It was salty and “smelled like the sea”, said Kozybakov, an ecologist, now 51.