Fair Isle Marine Environment & Tourism Initiative

Awards & Designations

On 26th October 2016, Roseanna Cunningham, Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, announced the designation of the Fair Isle Demonstration & Research Marine Protected Area - Scotland’s first ever designation of this kind.

RSPB's prestigious Nature of Scotland Award 2013, Marine Conservation category (sponsored by Marine Scotland). Nick Riddiford - coordinator of FIMETI - was presented with this Award in October 2013 in recognition of FIMETI's continuing 25 years' endeavour towards achieving marine protected status for the waters around Fair Isle and a sustainable future for the community of the island.

Year of Natural Scotland 2013 Award, supported by Creative Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage. The Award recognises the work of FIMETI in seeking “to ensure the waters surrounding the isle are used sustainably”. FIMETI will work with talented Fair Isle composers, Inge Thomson and Lise Sinclair, to create Da Fishing Hands, a project featuring music and song inspired by documentation about Fair Isle’s fishing grounds and their changing use since 1900.

The Council of Europe's prestigious Diploma in recognition of the island's outstanding natural beauty and cultural heritage, first awarded to Fair Isle in 1985 and continuously renewed every 5 years since. Marine protection for the waters around Fair Isle has been repeatedly called for in successive renewals of the Council of Europe Diploma and is now supported even more strongly by a special condition in the most recent Council of Europe Diploma renewal (2010)

National Scenic Area, one of seven coastal landscapes in Shetland designated as of 'outstanding scenic interest'

Special Protection Area (SPA) with particular reference to Fair Isle's nationally and internationally important breeding seabird species, classified under the EC Birds Directive

Site of Specific Scientific Interest (SSSI), approximately half the isle, comprising the Hill grazing, the entire coastline and cliffs, for its biological and geological assets, including its internationally important seabird colonies

Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) an agri-environmental scheme in which crofters plan and carry out management measures to maintain and enhance landscape, wildlife and archaeological conservation

Special Area of Conservation (SAC) with particular reference to Fair Isle's cliff vegetation and maritime heath habitats

Scottish Crofting Township Award, a Scottish Crofters Union and Scottish Natural Heritage award to crofting townships displaying commitment to and conservation of their environment, received in 1995