Sea Area Fair Isle: that’s a familiar phrase to all who follow the radio’s Shipping Forecasts. It is also the title of a booklet now at the printers.

'Sea Area Fair Isle' - 38 page publication is a tribute to the Fair Isle community’s intrinsic dependence on the sea through the millennia, and the community’s efforts – past and present – to ensure that this vital resource is safeguarded for the generations to come. It describes how impacts on that resource have focused community minds and explores the factors behind the ensuing changes, which have accelerated in recent times. Finally, it looks to the future and the positive steps being taken to demonstrate to the wider world the huge cultural, economic and environmental values the seas bring to this small Isle.

'Sea Area Fair Isle' is sponsored by the Williamson family, written by Nick J Riddiford and Kerri Whiteside and is a final addition to a series published over the last twenty years by the Fair Isle Marine Environment and Tourism Initiative (FIMETI).

The others in that series were: Fishing Traditions of Fair Isle by Emma Perring, Standing into Danger: Shipwrecks of Fair Isle by Anne Sinclair, Exploring the Coasts and Shores of Fair Isle by Elizabeth Riddiford, and the three-language (Norwegian, English, Swedish) titles En Smack av Nord/A Taste of the North/Smakbitar Från Norr and Håndverk/Handwork/Hantverk edited by Anne Sinclair – all now out of print.