New Zealand Hopeful Japan Can Be Beaten In Whaling Vote

New Zealand is still hopeful that moves by Japan to overturn a two decades old moratorium on commercial whaling can be thwarted, Conservation Minister Chris Carter said Tuesday. Japan has been encouraging allies to sign up to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and is now believed to have the numbers for a majority in the organisation.

Although a three-quarters majority would be needed to overturn the moratorium, environmentalists fear Japan and other pro-whaling nations could use a simple majority in a vote on commercial whaling on Friday to erode protection for whales.

Carter said before leaving for an IWC meeting in the Carribean state of St Kitts and Nevis that Japan's victory was not yet assured, despite new allies Guatemala, the Marshall Islands and Cambodia joining the organisation.

Japan had won the support of several small and impoverished countries last year but some did not turn up to the IWC meeting to vote, preventing Japan from winning a majority, Carter said.

Australia and New Zealand have been leading a diplomatic offensive to keep the moratorium in place. Carter and Australian Environment Minister Ian Campbell have been visiting Pacific island states in a bid to shore up the conservation vote.

Carter recently won an undertaking from the Solomon Islands to abstain on crucial votes and he said he intends to "forcibly" remind other wavering IWC countries of the importance of marine conservation.

"This IWC meeting could be crucial to the future of the world's whale populations," he said.

But he admitted Japan, which has been a generous donor to poor Pacific countries, appeared to have the advantage ahead of the meeting. "It seems to be bent on a mission whose costs are almost unlimited," he said.

Japan, along with Norway and Iceland, the only three nations to carry out significant whaling, argues the moratorium has done its job and that some species are plentiful enough to hunt.

Currently, Japan conducts what it calls "scientific whaling" which is permitted by the IWC. In all, pro-whaling states take around 2,000 whales a year.