MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Japan, Australia meet to talk about whaling campaign

Japan and Australia say they will pursue diplomatic channels to resolve their long running dispute over whaling. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith met his Japanese counterpart, Hirofumi Nakasone in Peru, in anticipation of this weekend's APEC leaders meeting.

The issue of whaling again featured prominently with Smith saying Australia was determined to press its opposition to the practice. During their meeting, Mr Nakasone asked Australia to crack down on anti-whaling groups that have disrupted previous hunts. Japan's whaling fleet set off for the Antarctic on Monday with plans to kill up to 1,000 whales. Japanese officials' version of the Lima meeting was that there was no particular reply to that question from the Australian side. Australia has urged Japan to abandon its yearly whale hunt by launching its own scientific whaling study in the Southern Ocean to prove it was not necessary to kill the ocean mammals to study them. Japan's annual cull, carried out for what it says is scientific research, will begin in weeks. Tokyo has denied reports it plans to lower its quota target by 20%, meaning that its fleet could again harpoon close to 1.000 fin and minke whales around Antarctica in coming months. "Modern-day research uses genetic and molecular techniques as well as satellite tags, acoustic methods and aerial surveys rather than grenade-tipped harpoons" Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett told reporters. Garrett said Australia would fund a scientific research program hopefully involving other countries and would send an invitation to Japan to take part. The 3.8 million USD research study would include aerial surveys, genetic analysis and tagging. "Australia does not believe that we need to kill whales to understand them" Garrett said. Activists say the research hunt is a front for commercial whaling, outlawed under an internationally agreed moratorium. Japan, which considers whaling to be a cherished cultural tradition, abandoned commercial whaling in accordance with the international moratorium in 1986, but began what it calls a scientific research whaling program the following year. Australia last year sent a customs and fisheries icebreaker to shadow anti-whaling activists and the Japanese fleet, gathering photo evidence of the yearly research hunt for a possible international legal case against Tokyo.