Former NZ PM urges whaling compromise

A former prime minister of New Zealand pleaded with both sides on the divisive issue of whaling to "swallow a dead rat" and strike a compromise as negotiators met in Florida.

Key nations including Australia and Japan, whose relations have been increasingly strained over whaling, met late into the night on Tuesday before resuming a second day of talks at a beachside hotel, participants said.

The meeting is looking at a proposal that would allow Japan, Norway and Iceland to openly hunt whales, despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling, but aim to reduce the total catch over the next 10 years.

Geoffrey Palmer, the former prime minister of anti-whaling New Zealand who helped draft the compromise for the International Whaling Commission (IWC), acknowledged that the proposal "will not satisfy any nation".

"It cannot. It is a compromise," Palmer told the closed-door meeting near Saint Petersburg, Florida, according to a prepared text.

"To put it another way, often used in domestic politics - both sides would have to swallow a dead rat," he said on Wednesday.

Australia has already said that the compromise was unacceptable and Japan has hinted it was not satisfied.

But Palmer warned the nations against sticking to "the comfortable acrimony of our established positions".

"If we do not scale this peak, I confidently predict no further attempt will be made for 20 years," Palmer said.

"Governments will not be prepared again to commit the significant diplomatic resources that have gone into the present exercise," he said.

Japan kills hundreds of whales a year in the Antarctic Ocean, revolting the public in Australia and New Zealand where whale-watching is a popular pastime.

Japan skirts the international whaling moratorium by using a loophole that allows "lethal research" on the ocean giants. Japan argues that whaling is part of its culture and makes no secret that the meat winds up on dinner plates.

The compromise would bring "scientific whaling" under the control of the IWC, requiring Japan to submit DNA samples and other data to the 88-nation body.

Norway and Iceland defy the moratorium on commercial whaling altogether by lodging objections to the international decision, a practice that would be banned under the compromise.

Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett has said the IWC proposal falls well short of his government's bottom line - ending Japanese whaling in the Antarctic Ocean.

Canberra has threatened legal action against Tokyo unless it sets a time frame to end its Antarctic hunts, threatening to sour relations between the longstanding allies.

Environmentalists have strongly opposed the compromise and urged the United States, which opposes commercial whaling but has not made its position clear on the proposal, to use its influence to block it.

"Conservation countries argue that we need to give the whalers something to save face by agreeing to some kind of deal," said Nicolas Entrup, spokesman for the Munich-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.

But he said the countries are "forgetting it is themselves who need to save face in front of their public explaining why they are agreeing to the legalisation of commercial whaling."

The Florida meeting, which runs through to Thursday, cannot alter the 1986 moratorium but can make recommendations to the next full meeting of the IWC, to be held in June in the Moroccan fishing port of Agadir.

The IWC will also hold a regular meeting on Thursday and Friday that will review a proposal by Denmark to allow indigenous people in Greenland to kill a limited number of humpback whales.