Dolphin activist Ric O'Barry, the central figure in "The Cove", plans to join the discussion on the issue with Taiji Mayor Kazutaka Sangen and the local fisheries union.

The meeting will begin at 10:00 am (0100 GMT) at a public hall with police scheduled to be deployed around the area to beef up security in case of any skirmishes between right-wing groups and environmentalists.

Every year fishermen in Taiji herd about 2,000 dolphins into a secluded bay, select several dozen for sale to aquariums and marine parks and slaughter the rest for meat, a practice long deplored by animal rights campaigners.

Japanese fishermen, who also hunt whales, have defended killing the sea mammals as part of a centuries-old tradition in the island nation.

"This is a significant meeting for the two sides to sit at the table and exchange views," said Atsushi Nakahira, head of the Association to Contemplate Taiji's Dolphin Hunt, a mediation group which has organised the meeting.

"It will be difficult to reach a breakthrough immediately, but it should be a remarkable first step in the search for common ground," he told AFP Monday.

The meeting, which will be open to the media but not the wider public for security reasons, will also be joined by representatives of environmental groups Sea Shepherd, the Whaleman Foundation and the World Ocean Fund.

The talks coincide with the annual September-April hunting season, for which Taiji town has been allowed a catch quota of 2,241 small whales and dolphins.

O'Barry, a former dolphin trainer for 1960s TV show "Flipper" and now an activist with the Earth Island Institute, has suggested Taiji promote ecotourism instead of dolphin hunting.

O'Barry said that he once held an informal dialogue with Taiji officials in the 1970s, but this will be his first such meeting since the release of the movie.

"The Cove", directed by Louie Psihoyos, won the Academy Award for best documentary this year, and has been followed up by a series on cable channel Animal Planet called "Blood Dolphins".

The team that shot "The Cove" over several years often worked clandestinely and at night to elude local authorities and angry fishermen, setting up disguised cameras underwater and in forested hills around the rocky cove.

Right-wing nationalist groups in Japan -- known for their ear-splitting street demonstrations using megaphones -- have attacked "The Cove" as anti-Japanese and tried to stop its screenings by harassing movie theatres.

This forced the film's distributor to scrap screenings in June, but it managed the first commercial showing at a police-guarded Tokyo theatre in July, despite a brief skirmish between right-wingers and supporters.

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