WASHINGTON (AFP) - The International Whaling Commission holds its annual talks in Alaska next week amid pressure to end an impasse over commercial and scientific whaling threatening the conservation of the gentle giants.
The 75-nation group charged with managing the world's whale populations established a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986 -- yet more than 20,000 whales have been killed since then for commercial purposes.
In 2006 alone more than 2,000 whales were killed, more than in any year since the moratorium entered into effect, environmental groups say.
"The protection of whales is a global concern," said Joshua Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environment Group, one of the largest environmental scientific and advocacy organizations in the United States.
"The current regime to conserve whales is failing to do the job. Unless the global community can find a better way to address some of the weaknesses of the current whale conservation regime, these animals face an increasingly uncertain future," he said.
The Commission is divided into pro-and anti-whaling groups, with the annual meeting serving as the perennial battleground over the fate of the commercial whaling moratorium.
The pro-whaling nations -- Japan, Iceland and Norway -- won a razor-thin 33-32 victory at the Commission's 2006 meeting in the Caribbean, passing a symbolic resolution saying the whaling moratorium was no longer necessary.
Although the trio needs a 75 percent majority to end the moratorium, they have been exploiting loopholes in the suspension which allows them to kill whales for "scientific research."
Japan, which says whale meat is part of its culture, has been recruiting friendly countries to the Commission. Critics say it is really offering economic aid to Commission members in return for pro-whaling votes.
Last week land-locked Laos, with no history of whaling, said it would join the Commission to back Japan's position.
The conservation lobby, led by western countries including Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Britain, is also on a relentless recruitment drive.
"This year the conservation bloc is looking very good," New Zealand's Minister of Conservation Chris Carter.
"A number of Latin American countries which previously supported the Japanese -- like Panama and Nicaragua, Costa Rica and so on -- have all joined the conservation bloc, mainly because those countries see eco-tourism now as their future," he said.
Greece, Croatia and Israel have also joined the IWC on the conservation side, he added.
But environmentalists fear the cause could still be weakened if Japan succeeds in changing some Commission rules, which require only simple majorities.
"A simple majority can do a lot of damage in terms of changing the tone of the commission and the way it interacts with other international organizations," warned Kate Nattrass, spokeswoman for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
Patrick Ramage, head of the Fund's global whale campaign, has taken its conservation message to new heights, flying a plane painted with humpback whales in a bid to lobby countries attending the Alaska talks to cut back on whaling.
Later this year, Japan will for the first time harpoon and kill 50 humpbacks, risking international condemnation.
Another likely controversial issue at the Commission's upcoming meeting is a debate on the renewal of so called aboriginal subsistence whaling quotas.
Quotas under discussion include a bowhead whale hunt undertaken by the Alaskan Inuit.
Japan has used the US request for this quota as a way to get Washington to support, at least in principle, Tokyo's request for a coastal whaling quota, conservation groups say.
Washington needs three quarters of the Commission's members to approve the Inuit quota, and Japan and its allies hold enough votes to block approval, they said.
A bipartisan group of 56 members of the US Congress has sent a strongly worded letter to the administration of President George W. Bush, asking it to fight harder for whale conservation and against commercial whaling.
The Whaling Commission is meeting on US soil for the first time in nearly two decades, which gives the United States an opportunity "to reestablish itself as a leader on whale conservation," said Democratic lawmaker Nick Rahall, head of the House of Representatives natural resources panel.