Greenpeace calls off anti-whaling mission in Japan

"Our actions have taken the plight of the whales to the top of the political agenda," Jun Hoshikawa, Greenpeace Japan's executive director, said in a statement. "But if we are to bring this hunt to an end, we have to bring change in Tokyo."

Greenpeace denied it had bowed to pressure from the Japanese authorities. "The key country we need to influence is Japan, and we want to do that inside Japan," Greenpeace spokesman Dave Walsh told the Guardian. "We do have an international impact, but there's not a lot of point in preaching to the converted.

"We have saved whales every year we've been in the Antarctic, but we want to end whaling for good and we can't do that if all our resources and energy are focused on the Southern Ocean."

However, the whaling fleet, which is due to leave for the Southern Ocean later this month, will not be able to carry out its cull unhampered.

Sea Shepherd, a marine conservation group that advocates direct action, has vowed to disrupt the fleet's attempts to slaughter whales as part of Japan's controversial scientific whaling programme.

"We intend to be more aggressive and even more relentless," Peter Hammarstedt, a Sea Shepherd activist, said in a statement. "We intend to make sure no whales are caught on our watch."