Sunday's vote confirmed the worst fears of environmentalists, who fear Japan will use an emerging pro-whaling majority on the commission to turn the IWC away from pure conservation back to regulating whale stocks for hunting.

The Japanese delegation was later Monday due to hold a meeting outside the official auspices of the IWC to discuss how to forge ahead with its plans for reform of the organisation - a process Tokyo calls "normalization."

The session, in the hotel hosting the IWC meet in the Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis, was expected to set a date and venue for formal talks on the issue Japan intends to hold before the next IWC annual talks in Alaska.

IWC members also delivered a gentle diplomatic rap across the knuckles to Greenpeace, but a US intervention saved the group from losing its observer status at the annual talks.

Japan condemned the group over the January 8 incident when Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise ship was involved in a collision with the Japanese vessel Nisshin Maru.

"The situation is very clear, that the collision was not created by us," said Japan's alternate IWC commissioner Joji Morishita.

Greenpeace however accuses Japan's ship of deliberately provoking the collision, and says its vessel was in hard reverse when the ships hit, leaving the Sunrise with damage to its bow.

The resolution, much softer than one originally mooted by Japan, did not specifically mention Greenpeace, but declared that the IWC does not "condone" actions at sea that risk human life or property.

It also called on member governments to take steps to ensure that groups affiliated with their countries adhere to International Maritime regulations.

Japan's IWC Commissioner Minoru Morimoto appealed to the polarized IWC, to leave the acrimony of Sunday's vote behind to remake the organisation.

"We issue an invitation to join the normalization process. Let's work to bring the IWC back on track to deliver sustainable whaling," he said.

Anti-whaling nations including Australia and Britain categorically reject Japan's proposals however, arguing that there is no place in the modern world for an organization that permits whale slaughter.

Despite Sunday's vote, the moratorium, enforced in 1986 as one of the environmental movement's proudest achievements, is not in immediate danger as it needs a currently unobtainable 75 percent majority to be overturned.

Hideki Moronuki, head of the whaling section of Japan's Fisheries Agency, cautioned against exaggerating the impact of the vote.

"Of course, if the moratorium were truly eliminated, we would be overjoyed. But for that to happen, it will still take a bit more time," he said in Tokyo earlier Monday.

Environmentalists at the IWC meeting in the Caribbean state of St Kitts and Nevis called the vote "tragic."

"This is the most significant setback since (the moratorium) came into force," said Kitty Block, a lawyer with Humane Society International.

Niki Entrup, of the Whalewatch coalition warned "this tragic moment ... is a return to the 1970s dark days where whales roamed the seas unprotected.

"The world must wake up from its great slumber."

Sunday's resolution said that the moratorium on commercial hunting "which was clearly intended as a temporary measure is no longer necessary."

Known as the St Kitts and Nevis declaration, it passed by 33 to 32 votes with one abstention.

Japan abides by the moratorium, but conducts some "research" whaling through what opponents say is a loophole in the IWC charter, as does Iceland.

Norway ignores the moratorium all together. Around 2,000 whales are taken a year by the three nations.

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