Environment Minister Ian Campbell headed the delegation that has visited the Marshall Islands and Kiribati this week and was headed to Vanuatu in a last-ditch effort to build the anti-whaling coalition ahead of a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) next month in the West Indies.

Campbell told ABC radio that the Marshall Islands intended to join the IWC and had not ruled out backing a Japanese-led drive to end a 20-year-old moratorium on commercial whaling.

"They've said they are new to the issue and they'll look at all of the input before they make a decision," Campbell said after meeting in the capital Majuro with the Marshall Island's Justice Minister Donald Capelle and acting Foreign Minister Matt Zackhras.

But Campbell issued a veiled warning that nations that join Japan in voting to allow the "commercial slaughter" of whales to resume could face an international backlash.

"I think the outrage that will surge up around the world if the vote goes the wrong way in St Kitts will force a lot of public attention on those key votes," Campbell was quoted as telling reporters by the Australian national news agency AAP.

"That's a message for anyone who joins the IWC," he said.

Campbell expressed concern that Guatemala recently joined the IWC and could vote alongside Japan, which only narrowly failed to get the 51 percent support it needed to challenge the ban on commercial whaling at the last IWC meeting a year ago.

"I think there'll be a close look at countries like Guatemala, the Marshall Islands ... and Palau, who have a phenomenal conservation record internationally but take an out of character position when they vote at the whaling commission," he said.

Campbell said his talks in Kiribati had also been inconclusive.

The country abstained on the commercial whaling vote at last year's IWC meeting but voted with Japan on other issues including allowing so-called scientific whaling.

Campbell said Kiribati officials suggested they would take the same position this year, but "are prepared to look at new information".

"I left the meeting suggesting that we still have more work to do and that Kiribati will make up its mind based upon what they regard as best for Kiribati and its people," he said.

"We will continue talking to them right through to when the meeting takes place."

Japan has heavily lobbied the Pacific nations to back their position on whaling and environmentalists have accused Tokyo of using aid to buy votes in the IWC, a charge Japan denies.

While Japan may muster a simple majority at next month's meeting, this will not be enough to overturn current whaling ban, which would require the support of 75 percent of IWC members.

But with a simple majority, the pro-whaling nations could obtain key policy changes like adopting secret ballots that could be used to challenge the moratorium in future.

Japan officially stopped commercial whaling in 1987 but uses a loophole in the IWC rules that allows the killing of whales for "research".

Japan last year doubled its annual kill to about 850 minke whales and extended the hunt to other species considered to be endangered. It launched this year's whale hunt just last week.

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