JAPAN launches into a bitter struggle with the governments of Britain, Australia and New Zealand today in an attempt to double its annual catch of whales.

Delegates from around the world gather in the South Korean city of Ulsan for the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), one of the most antagonistic international gatherings in the world.

Previous IWC meetings have seen walkouts, allegations of bribery and dirty tricks, and ill-disguised bitterness between the factions in conflict over whaling. This year’s gathering promises to be as nasty as ever.

Already Ben Bradshaw, the Fisheries Minister, has accused the Japanese Government of “sticking two fingers up at world opinion” in its efforts to increase its whaling quota. The Japanese have threatened to walk out of the IWC, describing the anti-whaling nations, which include Italy, Germany, the US, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, as fanatic.

At the centre of the conflict is the future of the moratorium on commercial whaling introduced by the IWC in 1986, after evidence that the world’s largest mammals were being driven to extinction. Every year Japan has sought to overturn the moratorium; every year it has failed to achieve the required three-quarters majority.

But recently the anti-whalers’ lead has been narrowing and this year the Japanese could secure 50 per cent of the vote. This would allow them to introduce procedural changes that could eventually lead to a resumption of commercial whaling.

Japanese fishermen already hunt 440 minke whales every year as part of a “scientific” quota, supposedly necessary to monitor the health of whale populations.

Environmentalists claim that this is a crude excuse for keeping commercial whaling alive — and almost all of the whale meat is sold for food. This week Japan has also tabled a motion calling for an increase in its annual “scientific” intake of minke whales to 935 and the right to hunt fin whales and humpback whales.

Ian Campbell, the Australian Environment Minister, declared that he regards his presence at the meeting as a “life and death mission for whales”.

Mr Bradshaw, said: “If Japan goes ahead with this, it will be sticking two fingers up at world opinion . . . The Japanese have been vigorously recruiting new members to the whaling commission, using financial incentives, which means the pro-whale nations may have lost our overall majority on the commission, which could make saving the whale in the future much more difficult.”

To the pro-whaling members of the IWC, which include Norway, China and Russia, the moratorium long ago served its purpose — to arrest the perilous decline in whale numbers.

Many whale species, they argue, have now reached safe levels, although the scientific evidence for this is disputed.Whale meat has been part of the Japanese diet for hundreds of years.

If they are not endangered, it is argued, then foreigners have no more right to object to their consumption than the Japanese would have to demand a ban on pork and beef.

Japan’s Fisheries Ministry said “It should be called an act of ‘cultural imperialism’ and should not be tolerated.”

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