31 August 2022: NAMMCO to the UN Special Envoy for the 2021 Food Systems Summit – Marine mammals are a food resource

A year ago, ahead of the United Nations Food Summit 2021, NAMMCO sent a letter to the UN Special Envoy for the 2021 Food Systems Summit, Dr. Agnes Kalibata, with copy to the Director of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy and Resources Division, Food and Agriculture Organization, Prof. Manuel Barange.

The objective of the letter was to underline that effectively and responsibly managed marine mammal hunting can contribute to resilient and sustainable food systems (socially, economically, and environmentally) and supports the global action towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals.

However, marine mammals are systematically ignored in the discourse on food security. It was therefore important that an event as important as the UN Food Systems Summit recognised and discussed the role that marine mammals play around the world in ensuring food security and food sovereignty, both now and in the future – and that in many places around the world as the map enclosed showed.

Although a reminder was sent, the letter remains unanswered to this date. The letter is copied below.

Global marine mammal consumption between 1990-2009 adapted from Robards & Reeves (2011), updated for South America and West-Africa with information from Cosentino & Fisher (2016), for Asia with Porter & Lai (2017), for Australia with Heihnsohn et al. (2004), for Japan with information from the Japanese Fisheries Agency, and with the NAMMCO and IWC catch databases.