The body voted by 30 to 27 in favour of an Australian proposal urging Japan to drop the plan to double its hunt in the Antarctic from some 440 minke whales a year and to include endangered fin whales and humpbacks, both listed as "vulnerable".

The vote, however, is non-binding and Akira Nakamae of Japan's fisheries ministry said afterwards the proposal would go ahead as planned.

Joji Morishita, the head of the Japanese delegation, said he was pleased with the level of Japan's support.

"Even though we lost, we are happy," he told journalists.

Britain, the United States and Germany had notably spoken out against Japan's programme, registering their "deep concern" and expressing reservations about the scientific justification of the expansion of the cull.

The measure found strong support among a number of small island states and developing countries that critics accuse of being puppets of Japan, intimidated into voting with Tokyo for fear of losing much-needed aid packages.

Conservationists broadly welcomed the outcome of the vote.

"I'm delighted that a majority of countries have sent a powerful message to Japan that their whaling in the Southern Ocean is just not acceptable," Conservation Minister Chris Carter of co-sponsor New Zealand told AFP.

Japan, which conducts research whaling under a clause in a 1986 moratorium, is campaigning for a full-scale return to commercial catches. It says stocks have recovered sufficiently during the 19-year ban to be sustainably harvested.

But since the commission's meeting opened in the former South Korean whaling port of Ulsan Monday it has suffered three key defeats in its plans to dump a 19-year moratorium on whaling and resume full-scale commercial catches.

A proposal it has put forward to scrap an Antarctic whale sanctuary was also defeated Wednesday.

However, concerns were mounting in the anti-whaling lobby over its slender majority in the 66-member bloc.

"It was a really tight vote today. We were frightened that we might not scrape through," said Nicola Beynon of Humane Society International.

"Japan gave a very clear warning that it is recruiting more countries next year and they threatened that the tide is going to turn.

"There's certainly no room for complacency. The anti-whaling countries need to lift their game up to the next level."

New Zealand's Carter said it would have been "very disturbing" had the Australian proposal been defeated.

Beynon urged anti-whaling countries to do more to stop the cull.

"It was really important that the Australian government registered this protest today and they can show that they have the weight of the international community behind them in condemning Japan's scientific whaling programme.

"But we know that Japan is impervious to this level of diplomatic pressure and they're going to ignore it," she said. "The anti-whaling countries... have got to come up with some way of stopping it.

"They haven't done it with the resolution today and they've got to pull out all the stops, whether it's looking at trade sanctions or international court action, they need to go up to the next level to stop this happening."

Although Japan is still far from securing the numbers needed to push through any major change in the 66-member commission's policy, it is close to being able to control the agenda.

"Japan cannot begin commercial whaling until it gets a three-quarters majority -- it's not going to get that -- but it will achieve a moral victory if it gets a majority of countries" on its side, Carter said.

New Zealand and other conservationists argue that Japan is already conducting commercial whaling by the back door through its research programme.

The scheme will from next year see Japan culling some 1,300 whales in the Antarctic and Pacific, up from around 650 this year.

Japan also lost out, as expected, in a bid to do away with a decade-old whale sanctuary in the Antarctic Ocean, which it says was adopted without appropriate scientific backing and is no longer necessary.

The proposal would have needed a three-quarters majority to be passed.

"We think it's really important that we send the message out that the sanctuaries are important," New Zealand's Carter said. "They're a powerful statement about how we value whale conservation."

All rights reserved. � 2004 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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