NZ and allies to push Japan after IWC vote

Anti-whaling countries, including New Zealand, will push for measures to save the giant mammals after Japan lost a crucial vote, Conservation Minister Chris Carter said today.

Anti-whaling nations, led by New Zealand and Australia and aided by five countries who abstained, voted down by 29 to 23 Japan's proposal to expand its "scientific whaling" programme at the International Whaling Commission yesterday.

Mr Carter told National Radio today it was a resounding defeat and Japan had lost face.

"The vote was never going to be won by Japan but if they won a simple majority they would have had a big diplomatic victory and it would have justified their decision to double the number of whales they intend to take under their so-called scientific programme," he said.

Now the conservation-minded block would push forward with a different conservation-minded scheme.

"The Japanese will attempt to block that, of course, and that is why there is all this posturing about leaving," he said.

Japan has threatened to quit the IWC but Mr Carter thinks there is little chance of that happening as it would be exposed to the "full grunt of world diplomacy".

Mr Carter added: "The international conservation NGOs would just love a campaign where they were boarding Japanese whaling ships in the southern ocean."

He said Japan had not done as well as it hoped because, despite spending a lot of time and money on getting a "whole bunch of new chums to turn up", some never arrived.

Japan has been accused of bribing small nations like Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands to get their support.

Korea and China, who traditionally voted in support, abstained.

New Zealand is worried that Japan's proposal to more than double its cull of minke whales - from 400 to 850 a year - and expand the hunt to include about 50 humpback whales a year, was a threat to the $120 million whale-watching industry.

Of the estimated 20,000 humpback whales surviving, only about 2000 migrated past New Zealand on their way to Tonga, and these are important to New Zealand tourism.

- NZPA