When Tameo Ryono first sailed about five decades ago from the remote Japanese village of Taiji to catch whales, he was filled with pride.

"Whalers were stars here in Taiji. I got what I had dreamed of since I was a little boy," the tall, softspoken Mr Ryono told Reuters at a community centre in Japan's oldest whaling village, nestled in a sprawling national park near the craggy Pacific coast.

"I'm proud of being able to do whaling throughout my life."

But Mr Ryono, 71, looks all but certain to be the last in his family to engage in whaling, as harsh criticism from conservationists and foreign countries, and changing appetites at home threaten a way of life whalers say stretches back 400 years. The International Whaling Commission (IWC) banned commercial whaling in 1986, but is now bitterly divided between countries such as Australia that say all whales still need protection, and those such as Japan that argue some species are abundant enough for limited hunting. The group meets in Chile later this month.

Japan and Australia agreed not to let the dispute hurt bilateral ties.

The two countries would also work to find a solution to the whaling controversy, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters after meeting Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

Japan conducts what it calls scientific research whaling in Antarctica. Critics say it's a cover for commercial whaling and that harpooning whales and cutting them up for processing on big factory ships is hardly traditional compared to the methods once used.

Now only 40 out of Taiji's population of 3,500 are whalers, contributing just a few per cent of its tax revenues compared to over 70 per cent in 1966, when the industry was at its peak. For hundreds of years, coastal whaling in Taiji was done from colorful wooden boats using huge rope nets and hand harpoons.

Villagers still recount the mass shipwreck during a storm that killed more than 100 Taiji whalers in 1878, virtually destroying the traditional industry.