Jamaicans can no longer
access their own beaches.
Tourists can pay for exclusive access
to beaches and all-inclusive resorts.
But everyday Jamaicans are increasingly being blocked out of them.
Some Jamaicans are organizing
to take down the colonial-era land laws that still affect them today.
And they're suing companies
for cutting off their access to the beaches.
This is Steer Town,
a historic fishing community on the north coast of Jamaica.
Local residents relied on the beach for their livelihood.
But in 2020, two companies bought the land containing the pathways
leading to Mammee Bay Beach.
The owners built a cement wall along the property,
effectively cutting off surrounding communities from the coast.
Lifelong fisherman Norris Arscott
lives up the hill in one of these communities.
Both his father and grandfather before him worked as fishermen
at the same beach that he did.
To access the new fishing beach,
Norris is forced to bike at 4:30 in the morning,
along a busy highway.
One of the companies announced a plan
to build a 250-room resort
on the land in front of Mammee Bay Beach.
It will sit beside two all-inclusive resorts
that already block access to the coastline.
According to local advocacy groups' calculations,
less than 1% of Jamaica's coastline
is accessible to the public.
Even at 70 years old,
Norris still relies on his income from fishing.
When weather conditions are optimal,
he can make a bit more than Jamaica’s minimum wage.
Minimum wage in the country is approximately $85 dollars per week.
In comparison, the two all-inclusive resorts that operate on Mammee Bay Beach
can cost hundreds of dollars per person per night.
Fisherfolk like Norris often don't see the benefits of those tourism dollars.
There are approximately 74 public beaches on the island,
but many of them are in disrepair,
charge daily use fees or
are difficult to access without a vehicle.
Damion Coombs lives in Steer Town down the road from Norris.
Since the beach’s access was blocked,
he has seen his neighbors lose their entire source of income.
A grassroots organization called JaBBEM
has started organizing communities like Damion's to fight for beach access.
JaBBEM helps communities with advocacy, including organizing this protest
and getting beach access rights cases into the courts.
Jamaica gained independence from the U.K. in 1962,
but many laws from colonial rule remain intact,
including one called the Beach Control Act of 1956.
The law states that the British crown maintains all rights to the foreshore,
and that the public has no inherent rights to access it.
While the monarchy no longer governs,
this law is still the primary beach access policy on the island.
So legally, Jamaicans are still not guaranteed the right to access the beach.
In other Caribbean countries like Barbados and Aruba,
all beaches are considered public property.
Devon Taylor is the president of JaBBEM,
or the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement.
He started the organization in 2022
after his hometown was cut off from the shoreline.
Black Jamaicans still face systemic inequalities
rooted in British colonialism.
Jamaica was a center of the Caribbean slave trade.
The British government granted enslaved Africans emancipation in 1838,
but they didn't receive any reparations or land.
Instead, it was slave owners who were provided reparations for their economic loss.
Voting rights were originally tied to property ownership,
and so landless Jamaicans couldn't vote until 1944.
It's estimated that nearly 20% of the country's population still lives
in informal settlements without land titles.
The Caribbean is the most tourism-dependent region in the world.
But according to the UN,
approximately 80% of all tourism dollars spent in the Caribbean
end up leaving the region.
This has been experienced firsthand by Shaneika Taylor,
who sells souvenirs and food on the beach at one of these resorts at Cooper's Pen.
Shaneika and her fellow vendors set up makeshift stalls
in front of the construction site of a new resort.
But once the resort is built,
they will likely have nowhere to sell.
The construction already cut off
local fisherfolk’s access to the beach.
The tourism industry makes up
approximately 20% of the country's GDP.
But the minister of tourism has also acknowledged that the sector
is known for low-paid, low-skilled jobs
that provide little economic security.
Access to tourism is often limited for Jamaicans like Shaneika,
who sell food and souvenirs to make a living.
Many of the other vendors at Cooper’s Pen
used to sell their products from a shopping village.
They say they have been forced
to move numerous times since construction began on the resort.
While they all rely on their income from selling to tourists,
the conditions they face to do so continue to get worse.
There's no longer a direct path to the beach,
so they trek through mangroves to get there.
JaBBEM is currently helping sue the companies and government agencies
that have cut off beach access from communities.
It has three active cases in the courts
and has 17 more it plans to file in the near future.
Norris and Damion are plaintiffs in one of these cases.
They built the case around another colonial era law
called the Prescription Act.
The law says members of the public can continue accessing a beach
if they can prove that they've used it for fishing, bathing or recreation
for 20 years without interruption.
JaBBEM plans to take the Cooper's Pen beach closure case to court.
While vendors aren't explicitly protected under the law like fishermen are,
JaBBEM hopes that winning some of these court cases
will lead the way to more permanent beach access rights for all Jamaicans.