When you cut us off from the sea, you are setting us up to starve
Along Jamaica's coastline, a quiet dispossession has been unfolding for years — beaches fenced off, fishing grounds restricted, livelihoods dissolved — as colonial-era law is turned to the service of private tourism interests. Next week, five court cases will ask Jamaica's legal system to decide whether the sea belongs to the people who have always lived beside it, or to the investors who have learned to profit from it. The Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement, born from protest and shaped by necessity, is pressing for rights that are not qualified or conditional, but absolute — the kind that do not require a license to exercise. At stake is not merely access to sand and water, but the deeper question of whether a nation's natural inheritance can be sold away from those who depend on it most.
- Five court cases are set to begin simultaneously, targeting the privatization of some of Jamaica's most iconic beaches — a legal offensive years in the making.
- Fishers like Roseroy Gay, who has worked the Blue Lagoon since 1979, now rely on remittances from abroad because beach closures have severed their connection to the sea and its resources.
- The 1956 Beach Control Act — a colonial relic — has become the legal engine of exclusion, allowing developers to lock communities out of shorelines they have used for generations.
- The government's proposed beach policy offers only 'qualified rights,' which activists say is access in name only — conditional, fee-prone, and revocable at a developer's discretion.
- A new disaster recovery law, the Narra Act, has raised fresh alarm: activists fear it could quietly erode the 20-year prescription protections that communities rely on as a last legal defense.
- The courts must now weigh two competing survival claims — the livelihoods of coastal communities against the tourism economy that employs hundreds of thousands across the island.
Jamaica's beaches are disappearing from public life — not through catastrophe, but through incremental legal enclosure. Fences go up, permits are denied, and the people who have fished and worked those shores for decades find themselves on the outside looking in. Five court cases, beginning next week, represent the most concentrated legal challenge yet to this erosion of access. The beaches at stake — Mammee Bay, Little Dunn's River, the Blue Lagoon, Bob Marley Beach, and Flankers in Montego Bay — are symbols of a broader struggle over who Jamaica's coastline is ultimately for.
The Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement, known as Jabbem, was forged in 2020 after police clashed with protesters at Mammee Bay. Its founder, Devon Taylor, speaks in concrete terms: the sea is where Jamaicans find food. Deny access, and you deny sustenance. Roseroy Gay, sixty-four, has fished the Blue Lagoon since 1979 and now depends on money sent home by family abroad. Clive Ivy, a woodcarver and vendor at Little Dunn's River, watches his income narrow with each new closure. These are not abstractions — they are the daily arithmetic of a law written seventy years ago.
That law, the 1956 Beach Control Act, was passed under British colonial rule and granted the state ownership of Jamaica's foreshores. It was designed as a mechanism of control, but has since become a mechanism of privatization — used by all-inclusive hotel chains to secure exclusive coastal access, with profits flowing outward while local communities are locked out. Successive governments have left the act intact. Prime Minister Andrew Holness proposed a modernized beach policy in March, but activists argue it offers only 'qualified rights' — access that can be conditioned, restricted, or charged for. What Jabbem demands is something simpler and more absolute: 'free, legal, unfettered, forever rights.'
The government, through Environment Minister Matthew Samuda, frames the issue through the lens of economic necessity. Tourism employs over 100,000 Jamaicans directly and supports hundreds of thousands more. New developments, the government insists, are required to preserve public corridors to the sea. But critics note that beaches are being treated as assets to be monetized rather than commons to be protected — and that the question of for whom the benefits flow remains unanswered.
A further complication has emerged with the Narra Act, passed in March to accelerate post-hurricane reconstruction. Activists fear it could undermine the 1882 Prescription Act, which protects the public right to use land that has been continuously accessed for twenty years. If Narra disrupts that continuity or concentrates too much authority in the executive, it could quietly eliminate one of the last legal shields available to coastal communities. Taylor calls it a power grab dressed in disaster relief language. The government insists oversight remains intact.
What unfolds in these five courtrooms will not only determine beach access — it will define the terms on which Jamaica's natural resources are held, and by whom. The activists are not seeking charity. They are seeking restoration of what they argue was never legitimately taken. The government is managing an economy that depends on the very industry doing the taking. The courts must now decide which claim to survival carries more weight.
Jamaica's beaches are closing. Not all at once, not with fanfare, but steadily—parceled off to hotel chains, cordoned with fences, made inaccessible to the people who have fished those waters for decades and sold crafts to tourists along the sand. Next week, five separate court cases will begin in Jamaica's legal system, each one a challenge to this slow erasure of public access. The beaches in question—Mammee Bay and Little Dunn's River in St Ann, the Blue Lagoon in Portland, Bob Marley beach in St Andrew, and Flankers/Providence in Montego Bay—represent something larger than geography. They represent a fight over who owns Jamaica's future.
The legal campaign is being led by the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement, or Jabbem, an organization born in 2020 after violent clashes between police and community members protesting the closure of Mammee Bay. Devon Taylor, the group's founder, frames the stakes plainly: the sea is where Jamaicans find wild food. Cut them off from it, and you are starving them. Roseroy Gay, sixty-four years old, has fished the waters of the Blue Lagoon since 1979. Beach closures and shifting fishing zones have left him dependent on money sent home by children and relatives living abroad. Clive Ivy, who sells painted woodcarvings and beaded necklaces at Little Dunn's River, watches his ability to earn a living shrink with each new closure announcement. These are not abstract grievances. They are the specific, daily consequences of a law written seventy years ago.
The 1956 Beach Control Act is the legal instrument at the center of this fight. Passed when Jamaica was still a British colony, it granted the state ownership of the island's foreshore and seabed, meaning anyone wanting to use or develop a beach needed government permission. What began as a colonial mechanism for state control has evolved into something else: a tool for privatization. The all-inclusive tourism industry—worth billions annually—uses the act to secure exclusive access to stretches of coast. Profits flow out of the country or into the hands of a small elite. Meanwhile, Jamaicans who depend on the sea for food, work, and health find themselves locked out of their own shoreline.
Taylor argues the system is fundamentally political. The Beach Control Act has sat on Jamaica's books through successive governments, none of which chose to repeal it. The prime minister has the power to change this through cabinet action, Taylor says, but the political will has never materialized. In March, Prime Minister Andrew Holness proposed a beach access and management policy intended to modernize the legislation and expand public access. But activists read it differently. The policy, they argue, does not grant Jamaicans fundamental rights to their beaches. It grants only "qualified rights"—access that can be restricted, conditioned, or charged for at the discretion of developers holding licenses. Damion Coombs, Jabbem's director of community engagement, articulates what the movement is actually demanding: "free, legal, unfettered, forever rights."
The government's position, articulated by Environment Minister Matthew Samuda, emphasizes the economic value of tourism. Between 112,000 and 116,000 Jamaicans work directly in the tourism sector, he notes. Another 300,000 to 350,000—more than ten percent of the population—benefit through connected industries: farming, transportation, craft vending, electrical engineering. The government has insisted that new developments on public land carve out corridors to the sea. But Samuda's framing reveals the fundamental tension: beaches are being treated as "natural assets" to be converted into "economic benefit." For whom, and at what cost, remains the question the courts will soon be asked to answer.
A second legal threat has emerged, complicating the landscape further. The National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority Act, or Narra, was passed in March to fast-track rebuilding after Hurricane Melissa. Activists worry it will weaken the 1882 Prescription Act—a law that protects the right to use land or pathways that have been continuously accessed as public routes for at least twenty years. If Narra interrupts that continuous use, restricts access to information, and concentrates power in the prime minister's office, it could eliminate one of the last remaining legal tools available to communities fighting for beach access. Taylor sees it as a power grab dressed in disaster relief language. Shadow Environment Minister Omar Newell shares the concern, noting that Narra concentrates "a ridiculous amount of power" in the hands of one minister. Samuda defends the act as necessary for urgent, large-scale procurement and resilience-building, insisting that oversight and parliamentary approval remain in place.
What happens in these five courtrooms over the coming weeks will shape not just beach access but the broader question of who controls Jamaica's natural resources and for whose benefit. The activists are not asking for charity or special treatment. They are asking for what they say was already theirs—the right to fish, to work, to live from the sea without permission from a developer or a license from the state. The government is trying to balance that claim against the economic machinery of tourism, a machinery that employs hundreds of thousands and generates revenue the country depends on. Neither side is wrong about the stakes. Both are fighting for survival, just from different positions. The courts will have to decide which survival matters more.
Citações Notáveis
The sea is the only source of wild food in Jamaica. When you cut us off from the sea by denying us access, you are setting us up to starve.— Devon Taylor, founder of Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement
What we are fighting for is free, legal, unfettered, forever rights. Not qualified rights that somebody can decide on or charge a fee for.— Damion Coombs, Jabbem's director of community engagement
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does a law from 1956 still have this much power over Jamaica's beaches today?
Because no government since then has chosen to repeal it. It's not that the law is hidden or forgotten—it's that the system it created became useful. Tourism generates enormous revenue. The Beach Control Act gives the state the power to grant exclusive access to developers. That's a tool that works, so it stays.
But the activists say the policy the prime minister proposed in March still doesn't give people fundamental rights. What's the difference between what they want and what the government is offering?
The government is offering "qualified rights"—access that can be restricted, charged for, or revoked depending on what a developer's license allows. The activists want "free, legal, unfettered, forever rights." One is conditional. The other is not. It's the difference between asking permission and owning the right.
The minister says tourism employs over a hundred thousand people directly. Doesn't that matter?
It does matter. That's real employment, real income for real people. But the activists would say: so does fishing. So does selling crafts. So does subsistence living from the sea. The question is whether those livelihoods should be sacrificed to protect a tourism industry that mostly benefits outsiders and foreign investors.
What worries them most about the Narra Act?
That it could interrupt the continuous use of beaches—which is the legal foundation for the Prescription Act, a law that protects public access rights after twenty years of continuous use. If Narra breaks that continuity, it removes one of the last tools communities have to fight for beaches in court.
Is there any middle ground here?
The government says it's already carved out corridors to the sea in new developments. But activists say corridors aren't enough—they want genuine, unrestricted access. The real middle ground would require the government to choose something other than maximizing tourism revenue, and there's no sign it's willing to do that.