An unlikely grouping of the British government, naturalist Sir David Attenborough and Lord Ashcroft, Britain's former Conservative Party treasurer, has emerged to try to stop Japan and its allies from overturning the international ban on whaling.

British ministers have signed up Croatia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Greece to join an anti-whaling coalition at the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) annual conference, which began yesterday in Anchorage, Alaska. Two more anti-whaling nations, Costa Rica and Peru, have also been persuaded by Britain to pay their membership dues to allow them to vote.

The initiative potentially tips the balance against Japanese diplomacy aimed at lifting the 25-year-old moratorium on commercial whaling.