Former Waitangi Fisheries Commission chairman Sir Tipene O'Regan has outraged environmentalists by suggesting that stranded whales should be left to die.
He also argued that Maori be allowed then to use the dead whales for materials - a remark that a leading conservationist warned could lead to violence.
Sir Tipene accused environmental organisations of using whales as a symbol to win public sympathy without scientific arguments to back their case.
The former chairman of Ngai Tahu and a keynote speaker at the opening session of the four-day World Council of Whalers conference in Nelson referred to environmental "ayatollahs" who were "practising a new form of millennium religion."
Before the conference, he told National Radio that Maori were irritated by people trying to rescue stranded whales, which should be left to die. Maori should then be allowed to use them for materials.
"Maori see the ... crowds of gleeful holidaymakers pushing whales back into the sea, and they get quite reasonably irritated about that, when you get natural strandings in which they have an interest and then you see that all being moved out with the enthusiastic support of the central green bureaucrats," he said.
Anti-whaling stalwart Jo Berghan, a leading member of the whale rescue organisation Project Jonah, said violence could flare if whale rescuers were told to let stranded mammals die so Maori could harvest them.
She said Sir Tipene's remarks opened up the potential for confrontations over stranded whales.
"The public would be screaming if [the Department of Conservation] was saying, 'Now stand back. We're going to let them die so Maori can harvest them.' It would get potentially physically violent. The thought of leaving whales and dolphins on a beach to die so they can be harvested for cultural rights and beliefs just puts us back in a category below any other animals."
The Department of Conservation has jurisdiction over stranded marine mammals and decides whether they are ultimately refloated or humanely killed.
Green Party animal welfare spokeswoman Sue Kedgley said Sir Tipene's comments were cruel and inhumane and would shock most New Zealanders.
"While we fully support the rights of Maori to use the remains of dead whales for carving, as they have always done, we do not agree that humans should turn our backs on beached whales to ensure that they die," she said.
"The Green Party does not support practices which cause unnecessary suffering to animals, let alone highly intelligent and rare mammals like whales."
Sir Tipene also used his speech to attack critics of the conference who claimed its focus on indigenous people's right to traditional harvesting of whales was a front for commercial whaling.
There was "no more ... insulting and patronising position than that which depicts this gathering as a naïve bunch of natives being led around by the nose by industrial nations," he said.
The controversial conference started peacefully at the Rutherford Hotel in central Nelson yesterday with just a handful of protesters from the Green Party and Forest and Bird standing outside and a low-key police presence.
The protesters presented the council chairman, Chief Tom Mexsis Happynook, with a formal written request to support the proposed South Pacific sanctuary.
Green Party members had turned down an invitation to take part in a conference session, but were yesterday considering a fresh offer to address the gathering.
Nelson Greens spokesman Mike Ward said they did not want to legitimise an event they considered was being backed by commercial whaling.
However, a further offer to read their statement on Sunday was being considered.
"I don't like to turn down a request to speak, but I'm reluctant to legitimise the conference," he said.
World Council of Whalers adviser Milton Freeman said Foreign Minister Phil Goff and Greenpeace had also declined offers to speak on the sanctuary issue.
Chief Happynook, from Canada, said the council had come to support iwi in their struggle to establish their indigenous rights to carry out customary practices.
- NZPA
Outrage at Maori call to leave whales to die
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