Australia govt says will not monitor Japan whalers

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia will not send a fisheries patrol ship this year to shadow Japanese whalers and protests near Antarctica, the government said on Friday, appealing for activists to keep high seas protests peaceful.

As Japan's whaling fleet heads to the Southern Ocean to hunt close to 1,000 minke and fin whales, Canberra said it was pursing a diplomatic solution to Tokyo's yearly research hunt after Japanese complaints last season about the Australian patrol ship.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett said the ship had already gathered photographic and video evidence of the hunt to back a possible international legal challenge to the cull, while this season's hunt would be mostly in New Zealand patrol areas.

"We said we would monitor the whaling activity and we did. We won't be using the (patrol icebreaker) Oceanic Viking again to monitor the whaling fleet this year," Garrett told state radio.

The annual five-month cull will begin in weeks.

Japan, which considers whaling to be a cherished cultural tradition, abandoned commercial whaling in accordance with the international moratorium in 1986, but began what it calls a scientific research whaling program the following year. Australia's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith met his Japanese counterpart Hirofumi Nakasone ahead of an Asia-Pacific leaders meeting in Peru on Thursday and said Australia was determined to end the cull, but through diplomacy.

Japan is Australia's biggest export market and a security partner with a defense pact drawing the two together as Asia-Pacific allies with the United States.

Nakasone in turn asked Australia to crack down on anti-whaling protest groups that disrupted last season's cull with stink bomb attacks and boardings that resulted in the brief detention of two activists on a harpoon ship.

The hardline Sea Shepherd protest group captain Paul Watson said he expected more clashes this season between the fleet and his flagship the Steve Irwin, which has previously been involved in ramming incidents.

"If you want to stop piracy, you need a pirate to do it," Watson told Australian media, adding that "hanging banners and just witnessing" was not enough to stop environmental plunder.

Watson, who will leave Australia in days, said he believed the whalers were close to financial collapse after incurring what he said was a $70-million loss last season, in part due to protest action disrupting the cull. The yearly hunt generates $120 million in revenue.

Greenpeace will not go to Antarctica this year to concentrate on an anti-whaling campaign in Japan and a court case against some of its activists over the alleged theft of whale meat.

Garrettappealed to activists to keep this season's protests peaceful, saying the hunt would take place mostly in New Zealand's maritime rescue area of the Ross Sea.

"We certainly don't support action which places the jeopardy of anybody in the Southern Ocean ... at risk," he said.

(Editing by Valerie Lee)