MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Anti-whaling alliance winning this year's conference

Japan's attempt to revive commercial whaling looks dead for another year after the country lost a third crucial vote at an international meeting. Conservationists and anti-whaling nations had feared the pro-whaling camp led by Japan, Norway and Iceland might have got over the line at this year's International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Caribbean island of St Kitts.

Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell said the strength of international opinion had kept the 20-year-old moratorium on commercial whaling in place.

"I think it's game over for this year, but it sends a message to the whole world that if the world wants to make sure this moratorium stays in place, they have to make sure that whale conservation is strengthened, not weakened", said Campbell.

A vote on a third motion relating to a resumption of commercial whaling narrowly failed to get enough support at the IWC meeting.

Japan's proposal to allow some of its coastal communities to conduct small-scale commercial minke whale hunts was lost by 31 votes to 30.

The move was defeated when an anti-whaling alliance, led by Australia with New Zealand, Brazil, Ireland, United States surprisingly won a series of knife-edge votes at the International Whaling Commission's annual conference in St Kitts.

But after two days of bitter exchanges, Australia's Environment Minister, Ian Campbell, turned up the heat again accusing the Japanese of lying over its whale hunting program, which it says is for scientific research.

Mr Campbell backed a report tabled with an IWC committee that he said proved Japan's claims that its whale-harpooning technology was humane was "absolutely false".

Standing in front of the media with a photo of a harpooned whale in a sea of blood, Mr Campbell said "this is how Japan, in the name of science, collects whale meat, takes it back to Japan, sticks it in warehouses". "(Japan) tries to get schoolchildren to eat it, gets old people to eat it, and we also know from some evidence that they feed it to dogs. It is a horrendous thing ... it is absolutely abysmal, it is wrong and it has to stop."

The head of Japan's delegation, Joji Morishita, denied the report's findings and accused Mr Campbell of playing politics for a domestic audience, saying Australia's stance on whales was hypocritical. "Whale killing methods used for whaling is one of the most humane ways and it is proved by science," he said. "I just wonder if the minister knows how long it will take for the kangaroos to die in your country?"

The International Fund for Animal Welfare report said a review of a Greenpeace video taken last year of Japanese sailors harpooning whales in the Southern Ocean showed about 80 per cent of the minke whales died in 10 to 33 minutes, not instantaneously as Japan claims.

"What Japan is doing is not just cruel, it's criminal -- and the IWC has ignored this fact for too long," said IFAW director Mick McIntyre.

Japan still hunts whales despite a 20-year IWC moratorium that banned commercial whaling after whales were pushed to the edge of extinction.

Japan uses a clause in IWC's rules that says whales can still be hunted for scientific research and next year, apart from minke and the threatened fin whales, it is proposing to kill for the first time in more than 20 years 50 humpback whales.