A LEADING campaign group is taking legal action to protect public beach access rights in Jamaica.

Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM) will be in in court this week, as the campaign group resumes its legal battle to ensure locals can access the Blue Lagoon in Portland, and popular Bob Marley Beach (BMB) in St Thomas.

The campaign group claims that only a tiny 0.6% of Jamaica’s coastline is accessible to the public.

The cases will be heard at Portland Parish Court, on Monday 25 March, and at the Kingston Sutton Street Court on Thursday (March 28).

JaBBEM says the ongoing court case will “continue to highlight the continued threat to fundamental public access rights to Jamaican beaches”.

Dr Devon Taylor, president of JaBBEM, said: “Despite the most recent promises by the Government of Jamaica (GoJ) that Jamaicans must have access to their beaches, the threat of beach access loss remains high.

“In fact, statutory bodies of the GoJ, namely the Commissioner of Lands and the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, are listed as defendants in the BMB and Blue Lagoon cases respectively in addition to private interests. This further highlights the complicity of the GoJ in public beach access restriction.”

Taylor added: “The issue of public beach access loss and exclusion are mainly due to the lack of a post colonial modern legislation to guarantee fundamental rights to access our beaches. The colonial era Beach Control Act of 1956 (BCA-1956) provides the legal context to discriminate against the Jamaican people regarding accessing their beaches.”

The campaign group also say that the rapid expansion of hotels and luxury resorts across the Caribbean island is excluding non-paying Jamaicans from accessing beaches.

Rights

JaBBEM claims the National Environmental Planning Agency is issuing licenses to hotels, villas and other beachfront properties that confirm the rights to establishments to exclude Jamaicans from these beaches.

The group says this highlights “the GoJ’s complicity in beach access loss for Jamaican people.”

The statement continued: “While the GoJ boasts that there are over 60 accessible public beaches islandwide, this only represents a mere three (3) miles or 0.6% of access in comparison to the 494 miles of coastline. This is nothing to celebrate in the 21st century as a sovereign country. The government is the major landowner of coastal properties and can easily remedy this problem.

“JaBBEM is concerned about the government’s inability to decolonise, conserve and democratise the Jamaican coastline, and sees it as an injustice that communities have to seek legal action in the courts to protect continued access to the nation’s beaches.

“We call for nothing less than the enactment of legislation that guarantees the Jamaican people general and unfettered rights (with constitutional protection) to access all beaches and rivers, which are parts of our ecological heritage.”

Celebrity backing

Earlier this month, Reggae legend Sizzla said locals need to have full access to beaches across Jamaica.

This follows similar calls from a group of Black Brits, who last year said they would write to Jamaica’s Prime Minister calling for beach access to be protected for locals.

The group called, Jamaicans and Friends of Jamaica of the Diaspora in the North of England, say there is a “growing concern” that some Jamaicans are being denied entry to the country’s beaches.

Bob Marley’s children, Ziggy, Cedella and Stephen Marley, have also been very vocal on the topic of wanting Jamaica’s beaches to be made accessible to local people.