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Whaling meeting set for major shift

Pro-whaling nations led by Japan yesterday made a bid for control of the world body credited with saving the planet's biggest creatures from extinction.

In what would be a severe blow to the Green movement, which earned a global following with the 1980s "Save the Whales" campaign, pro-whaling states hope to grab a voting majority on the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Gloomy environmentalists all but admitted defeat on the eve of the IWC's annual meeting at a luxury beach resort in the sleepy Caribbean state of St Kitts and Nevis.

"It would be a great reverse, no doubt about it," said John Frizell, a Greenpeace activist who has been a fixture of IWC events since the 1970s.

Some activists also lashed out at Japan, which they accuse of using foreign aid to bribe poverty stricken Pacific and Caribbean nations to back its bid to return the IWC back into a whalers' club.

"What they will look to do is take the IWC back to 1946," said Susan Lieberman, a senior WWF official, referring to the date when the body was set up to check alarming over hunting and save whales from extinction.

"The world has moved on from 1946, we don't want to go back to 1946," she added.

A two-decades old moratorium on commercial whaling is not thought to be under immediate threat -- it needs a 75 percent majority in the IWC to be overturned -- but whaling opponents fear its days could eventually be numbered.

They believe that armed with a majority, pro-whaling nations could crush whale conservation efforts, revoke observer status for groups like Greenpeace which disrupt whales hunts and stifle transparency on the IWC.

Japan immediately rejected Lieberman's comments about a 60-year roll back for conservation.

"To make that kind of claim is outrageous," said Glenn Inwood, a spokesman for Japan's IWC delegation, arguing that not in anyone's "widest imaginations" would a modern whaling operation resemble mass cullings of the past.

Japan argues the moratorium has been so successful that whaling of certain species can now be carried out in a sustainable manner, without harming whale overall whale stocks.

As they arrived at St Kitts, delegates began furiously totting up how yesterday's first votes could go.

"On paper, it appears that the Japanese, or the pro-whaling bloc has a majority," said Joth Singh, of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

In terms of votes, pro-whaling nations seemed to have around 35 votes to 30 for the anti-whaling block, which includes Australia, New Zealand and Britain, he said.

The vote will still be a cliffhanger however, because although the IWC has 70 members, it is not sure if all will show up.
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