These regions hardly attain a yield of 14 M mt at the MSY level, being the Indian Ocean the most productive of this group with 12 M mt caught in the whole area. The stock biomass approaches to 24 M mt at the MSY level but at the current exploitation level, this variable implies a reduction of almost 2 M mt, with almost 22 M mt.

The three regions in which it is divided show remarkable differences implying important characteristics in the fishing intensity applied; for instance, the Antarctic zone seems to have been completely overexploited and probably collapsed since 1992 (more recent catch data are not available) and the maximum catch was attained by the early eighties with nearly 100,000 mt as mean trend (Fig. 4A). The same as the Pacific western central, in the Indian ocean eastern the yield describes an increasing trend, with nearly 7 M mt in the last three years, with no signs of stabilization in the near future, which is also encouraging (Fig. 4B). The catch in the western region is also growing, but it seems to be stabilizing currently; the catch is 4.5 M mt corresponding to a maximum stock biomass of 9 M mt (Fig. 4C).

The catch at the Antarctic shows a declining trend, with a maximum yield of nearly 40,000 mt recorded in the middle fifties (Fig. 4D) and a stock biomass of 80,000 mt. Same as the Antarctic Indian Ocean, these fisheries seem to be completely collapsed since the late eighties.

The Mediterranean and Black sea display a quite stable catch trend through the last 30 years and the MSY was attained by the year 1990 with 1.6 M mt, from a biomass of 3.2 M mt. After that year there has been a slow declining trend, such that the current stock biomass is no higher than 3 M mt (Fig. 4E).

Figure 4. Trend of total catches extracted from several regions of the Indian Ocean, Antarctic, and Mediterranean-Black Sea in the period 1950 — 2010. A. Antarctic Indian ocean; the maximum yield was obtained in the year 1980 and the fisheries collapsed by the early nineties. B. Indian Ocean eastern; the fisheries are in a eumetric stage of growth nowadays. C. Indian Ocean western; after a sustained growth since the fifties, these fisheries appear to be approaching their MSY level nowadays. D. Antarctic ocean; all information related to this ocean confirms a collapse of its fisheries, as occurred in this case. E. Mediterranean-Black sea; after a period of slow but consistent growth, the MSY appears to have attained the MSY level in the late nineties, followed but a slow decline nowadays. F. The areas outside the Antarctic show the same trend as the Antarctic itself, with an apparent collapse nowadays.

Finally, the areas outside the Antarctic, apart from a peak of the catch in the middle sixties, display low yields that currently are above 11,000 mt from a stock biomass of 40,000 mt. This fishing region appears to be collapsed too.