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Futuristic vessels. . A life-or-death battle to save the planet, and a bid to protect an endangered species.

It sounds like the plot from the global blockbuster, Avatar, but we are talking, of course, about the annual clashes between the Japanese whaling fleet and conservation groups in the southernmost reaches of the planet, Antarctica.

For the past six southern summers, conservations groups, like Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd, have sought to disrupt the Japanese whaling fleet, and in the past few days their clashes have escalated to the point of an all-out whaling war, in the words of the captain of one of the Sea Shepherd ships.

This year, Sea Shepherd managed to deploy the Ady Gill, a powerboat which looks like a Batmobile-on-water, that holds the speed record for the circumnavigation of the globe. In this cat and mouse game, speed is essential when it comes to obstructing the Japanese whalers, and the Ady Gill was quick enough to sprint between the whales being targeted and the harpoon guns that were about to kill them.

But now the vessel has been sliced in two following a collision in Australian waters with a Japanese ship - a deliberate ramming, according to the Sea Shepherd group, which could easily have resulted in the death of its crew. The Japanese, meanwhile, claim that the Ady Gill was trying to disable one its vessels, by wrapping a heavy rope around its rudder, and by firing a laser beam into its bridge.

Despite an international moratorium on commercial whaling which came into effect in 1986, Japan kills hundreds of whales each year under a loophole allowing for lethal scientific research. Toyko claims it needs to cull whales to monitor their impact on fish stocks, and this year its whaling fleet, organised under the auspices of the Institute of Cetacean Research, intends to harpoon 935 minke whales, and 50 fin whales, which are classified as endangered.

But campaigners argue it's a thinly-veiled excuse to carry on commercial whaling - a largely culinary enterprise intended to satisfy the traditional Japanese liking for whale meat. They point, among other things, to the paucity of peer-reviewed scientific papers to have come from the "scientific cull" - four papers which were reliant on lethal research over an 18-year period and the slaughter of 6,800 whales, according to the ABC's science programme Catalyst in 2006.

Like Britain and New Zealand, the Australian government is strongly opposed to whaling, and Kevin Rudd has repeatedly raised the spectre of legal action in the international courts. As recently as last month, the Australian prime minister noted: "If we cannot resolve this matter diplomatically, we will take international legal action. I'm serious about it, I would prefer to deal with it diplomatically, but if we cannot get there, that's the alternative course of action."

Last year, the Australian government dispatched a customs ship the Oceanic Viking (which has more recently been housing a group of Sri Lankan asylum seekers) to gather information on the Japanese whaling fleet for use in a possible prosecution. But no action has been taken.

Campaigners claim the Australian government only pays lip-service to protecting whales but continually shies away from mounting legal action because of the potential diplomatic and economic fall-out with Japan, which remains Australia's largest trading partner.

So should the Australian government do more to block the Japanese whaling fleet? Should it offer more protection to the conservation groups? Have the tactics of the anti-whaling campaigners become too aggressive? Or should the Japanese fleet be left alone to continue a cull which it claims is of global scientific benefit?

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