Across the world there is a crisis in the world's fisheries. In recent yearsan accelerating decline has been observed in the productivity of many important fisheries. Fisheries which have been devastated in recent times include (but are not limited to) the great whale fisheries, the Grand Bank fisheries of the western Atlantic, and the Peruvian anchovy fishery. Recent assessments by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the state of the world's fisheries indicate a levelling off of landings in the 1990s, at about 100 million tons.