Whalers poised to regain control of IWC

3.00pm

Pro-whalers could win a majority on the International Whaling Commission (IWC) for the first time in 30 years if three new pro-whaling nations joined it tomorrow, Conservation Minister Chris Carter said today.

Mr Carter has just arrived at the IWC meeting in Berlin and said it was poised on the "knife-edge".

It would be a significant setback for whale conservation if pro-whaling nations gained majority membership.

Losing a pro-conservation majority would mean progress towards a South Pacific whale sanctuary, which had immense support in the Pacific, would be scuttled, he said.

Another pro-conservation proposal, called the Berlin Initiative, could also founder if a simple majority was lost.

The IWC is deeply divided, with roughly half of its 49 members, such as Japan and Norway, keen to introduce a limited catch of whales. The other half, including the United States and many European Union countries, favour further restrictions.

High on the agenda at the IWC's yearly meeting, being held from June 16 to 19, is the Berlin Initiative, a motion sponsored by 18 members to form a conservation panel.

Such a panel could make recommendations about the problems of marine mammals, or cetaceans, becoming entangled in nets; toxins in the oceans; climate change; or the use of sonar, which environmentalists say threatens whales with extinction.

Japan has already threatened to walk out of the IWC meeting if the initiative receives support.

Mr Carter said New Zealand was doing all it could to stop the Berlin Initiative from foundering and should know by tomorrow night if its efforts had been successful.

The moratorium on commercial whaling remained intact because it needed 75 per cent of IWC members to lift it.

"We need to be clear that a change in membership on the IWC does not represent a change in the world opinion on the importance of protecting whales -- it is just a culmination of a concerted campaign by pro-whaling nations to satisfy their appetites at the expense of a species," Mr Carter said.

- NZPA, REUTERS