Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature harshly condemned the draft plan which aims to unlock stalled talks when the 85-nation International Whaling Commission (IWC) meets next month in Florida.

While Greenpeace called it "a dangerous throwback to the 20th century when whales were hunted to near extinction", the WWF said it "could legitimise scientific' whaling by Japan in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary".

Commercial whaling has been banned worldwide since 1986 but Japan justifies its annual hunts in the Antarctic and Northwestern Pacific as lethal "scientific research" under a loophole permitted by the IWC.

Norway and Iceland also hunt whales, claiming it is central to their culture. Between them, the three nations have killed more than 30,000 whales since the moratorium was declared, says the IWC.

The draft -- which has not been agreed by members, and which leaves whale catch quotas undecided -- would allow Japan to keep hunting the ocean giants, but under stricter monitoring, including DNA sampling of whale meat.

Cristian Maquieira, the body's chairman, described the proposal as a "paradigm shift" designed to bring whaling back under IWC control, reduce the numbers killed and regulate it to ensure a healthy whale population.

The proposal comes as Japan's annual whale hunt in Antarctic waters has again made headlines in recent weeks, with its harpoon ships clashing repeatedly with militant environmentalists the Sea Shepherds.

Anti-whaling nation Australia last weekend warned it would launch legal action against Japan in the International Court of Justice unless it commits before November to ending its annual whale hunts.

Japan makes no secret of the fact that the meat of whales it kills is sold in restaurants and shops, and maintains that whaling is an important and centuries-old tradition for the island-nation.

Under the IWC draft proposal, whaling ships would be fitted with satellite monitoring systems, and DNA registries and market sampling would be introduced to detect illegal whaling and enforce quotas.

Commenting on the draft, Japan's Fisheries Minister Hirotaka Akamatsu said only that in the IWC talks "we will be flexible, but we will also seek to gain 60 or 70 percent of what we've been demanding".

A Japanese fisheries agency official said the new proposal "aimed at breaking the deadlock in the IWC, setting aside the arguments on the nature of whaling -- whether it is commercial whaling or scientific, or whaling by indigenous people for their subsistence".

"We can't comment on whether the proposal is good or bad for Japan," the official, Toshinori Uoya added.

Greenpeace, a veteran opponent of whaling, was scathing about the draft.

"The proposal rewards Japan for decades of reprehensible behaviour at the International Whaling Commission and in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary," said John Frizell, head of the Greenpeace Whales Campaign.

"We are at a critical junction for both whaling and ocean conservation. A return to commercial whaling would not only be a disaster for whales but will send shockwaves through international ocean conservation efforts."

In the draft document, a table features catch limits for the next 10 years, including for Japanese whaling of minke whales in its coastal waters while it leaves the annual quotas "to be decided".

"The only number that should be decided is zero," said Frizell.

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