KEY POINTS:
Conservation Minister Steve Chadwick says the breakthrough at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting in Chile is on a par with the decision 20 years ago for a moratorium on commercial whaling.
The IWC has set up a working group - which includes New Zealand - to go through substantive issues that divide members.
Ms Chadwick said the decision to set up the working group was a "major breakthrough".
"For the first time in 20 years we have agreed to a concrete process to talk about the substantive issues that divide us," she said.
Ms Chadwick said the working group would examine and try to resolve 33 significant issues on which there had been an impasse among IWC members.
Ms Chadwick today told NZPA these included issues about scientific whaling and permits, animal welfare issues, as well as sanctuaries.
On these issues, there had always been a voting block which meant "we've never really proceeded to the conservation of world whaling stock".
The working group would talk about the issues, look at the research and report back to the IWC with recommendations.
Ms Chadwick said the task ahead in resolving these was formidable and success was not assured.
But she felt the working group presented a way forward.
The working group would have its first meeting on Thursday, she said.
"That's where they're going to sit down and map out the way forward."
There were 22 of the 81 IWC members represented on the working group, including representatives from the United Kingdom, Mexico, Australia, the United States as well as pro-whaler Japan.
Ms Chadwick said New Zealand and Australia had been instrumental in getting the working group established.
New Zealand's whaling commissioner Sir Geoffrey Palmer had played a key role in achieving this, she said.
"The biggest last decision taken by the IWC was 20 years ago when they introduced the moratorium on commercial whaling. This is seen here today as the next biggest development."
Debate on the substantive issues had been going nowhere.
"This is the major breakthrough on process really and procedural changes and everybody's agreed to it, that's where it's unprecedented."
New Zealand was not moving on its position of being a staunch advocate for whales, it supported the moratorium on commercial whaling and wanted an end to special permit whaling, the so-called scientific whaling.
The IWC meeting is being held in Santiago, Chile.
- NZPA
