New Zealand's representative on the International Whaling Commission, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, says Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research enjoys strong support from a clique of ultra-conservative MPs who are pushing for a return to "sustainable" commercial whaling.
"They take the view that it's all right as long as it's
sustainable.
"But the difficulty about sustainability in this particular context is that it is a very elastic concept as we cannot tell how many whales there are - they spend most of their time underwater and they're migratory, therefore making estimates is very difficult."
He says the track record of the whaling industry is profoundly uninspiring.
"You have to remember that the history of the IWC is one of ruinous news for the whale stocks of the world.
"They were killed and plundered without adequate conservation for years and years and none of them have recovered to their pre-exploitation abundance."
But Sir Geoffrey says the IWC can't stay locked in a bitter stalemate forever, particularly when the scientific whaling loophole is allowing Japan to "whale at will" in the Southern Ocean.
He says striking some kind of compromise in an effort to reduce Japan's catch is one of the options at the IWC meeting in Chile next month.
Short of closing the scientific loophole, possible compromises include getting Japan to agree to hunt only in its own coastal waters, the agreed extension of whale sanctuaries, or some kind of management regime that allows whaling in some places when it is deemed scientifically sustainable.
But he says it's too early to talk about anti-whaling nations like New Zealand and Australia changing their positions.
"The New Zealand Government wouldn't change its position until it knew what would come out of this and we haven't seen that yet."
Sir Geoffrey says he cannot see Japan scrapping its whaling programme completely in the immediate future, but in the long-term it is fighting against deeper trends.
"I don't think the younger people in Japan favour this as food and I think there is a declining market for it.
"It's a dying industry and it's been dying for a long time. There are only three nations who are remotely interested in commercial whaling - they are Iceland, Norway and Japan.
"There are no others. The investment is very great and without state subsidy it seems like it cannot exist."
- NZPA
