JaBBEM vows to use the law for public beach access

WESTERN BUREAU:

FOLLOWING IN the wake of Wednesday’s first court hearing in the beach access lawsuit brought by residents of Flankers and surrounding communities against Sandals Resort International over access to the Flanker/Providence Beach in St James, the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM) says it will be using the law to argue for national beach access, which they say is being restricted by Jamaica’s Beach Control Act.

Referencing the lawsuit, which is set for continuation in the St James Parish Court on November 10, Dr Devon Taylor, the president of JaBBEM, is arguing that the disputed area, which Sandals is seeking to develop, is a community beach to which residents had unrestricted access for the past 60 years.

“The problem across the island is that Jamaicans do not have any inherent right to use the beach and to use the sea. The Beach Control Act of 1956 is the enemy of the people, as it allows for control of the coastline by corporations and by the Government, which issues licences to operate on the coastline,” Taylor told The Gleaner. “These licenses tend to not be compatible with Jamaican uses of the sea, because these licenses can exclude Jamaicans.”

“You cannot live in a country but not have the right to go to your beaches. But the only tool we have in our arsenal right now is the law, and we are using the Prescription Act of 1882 to defend the Jamaican people’s continued rights to these beaches,” continued Taylor. “We are prepared to use the Prescription Act for every single beach in the country, until our leaders realise that you cannot have beaches for hotels and different beaches for Jamaican people.”

Section 4 of the Beach Control Act says that the owner or occupier of any land adjoining any part of Jamaica’s foreshore (the shoreline between the water and cultivated or developed land) shall be entitled to use that area for private domestic purposes. Section 5 forbids encroachment on the foreshore for any public purpose or commercial intent without the requisite license.

Under Section 4 of the Prescription Act, if any beach has been used by the public for fishing, bathing, or recreation for 20 years, and any road or track adjacent to that land has been used by the public to access the beach over the same 20-year period, the public will thereafter have the absolute right to use such beach and access points as stated, unless it can be shown that consent or agreement was given for that access by deed or in writing.

According to Taylor, the years-long conflict over Jamaican citizens’ restricted access to beaches that were formerly publicly accessible is a local form of discrimination that must be nipped in the bud.

“We are moved to action because of the continued displacement and dispossession of the Jamaican people from the coastline. It is a discriminatory problem that is positioned as if to say that it is economically right for the country,” said Taylor. “It cannot be economically right for a country to develop any kind of business arrangement or industry where the Jamaican people are treated as if they are second-class citizens in their own country.”

The issue of public access to beaches that the Government has reportedly sold to private investors has been a recurring source of contention in recent years.

In 2022, concerns arose about fisherfolk and other residents of Mammee Bay, St Ann, being denied access to the Mammee Bay Beach, where a hotel’s construction was under way, and in 2023, beach rights campaigners in Portland protested the lack of public access to the Blue Lagoon Beach via the parochial road.