We want beach access!

WITH A mission to ensure beach access to all Jamaicans, the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM) was launched on Saturday at the Buckfield playing field in Ocho Rios, St Ann, with support from stakeholders who were in a militant mood, and who journeyed from several parishes across Jamaica for the event in order to reinforce the urgency of their mission.

President of JaBBEM, Dr Devon Taylor, who in March this year hit out at Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ budget debate presentation on beach access, lalbelling it deceptive and contradictory, called for more support from the wider public.

At the time, Taylor said Holness’ Beach Access and Management Policy (BAMP) contained legislation that will not give Jamaicans general rights but qualified rights to access the beach and use the sea, contradicting his own statement that: “All Jamaicans must have access to our beautiful beaches”.

On Saturday, Taylor made clear the mission JaBBEM was on.

“Today JaBBEM is pulling all the communities across Jamaica who have been severely impacted by displacement from beaches, displacement from rivers, displacement from the pillars of our ecological heritage and we’re asking the larger Jamaican public to join us in this fight to reclaim our birthright,” Taylor told The Gleaner.

“Our birthright is the treasures of the nation; the treasures of the nation have been hijacked by the monied class, with government complicity, as they displace Jamaicans from their beaches across the nation, and we’re saying no more, no more. Let our voices be heard!

“We’re standing here in solidarity, all the way from Negril straight to Morant Point, all across the country, letting the nation know that the Beach Control Act of 1956 is a discriminatory colonial-era law that needs to be removed from our books, and our Government has sat there for 67 years doing nothing about that, nothing to remove those discriminatory laws from our books, to give Jamaica general rights of access.

“We’re saying in this time, in this age, that we need to move in a new direction, a direction that will bring all Jamaicans into alignment with the (1:27) rights of freedom, freedom to access beaches, freedom to access rivers and that’s why we’re gathering here, this is just the beginning, the launch of JaBBEM.”

Gladstone Lawrence, who was part of the delegation from Cooper’s Pen in Trelawny, said with tourism interest taking over the beach in that community, fishermen have been denied the opportunity to continue making a livelihood.

He said he gave up fishing several years ago, as a result, and has resorted to burning coal to earn an income.

Lawrence said the group journeyed to Ocho Rios to support the protest against the Government and the treatment they have meted out to the people.

“We have no access to the beach; I have a boat on the beach it’s actually rotting, have fish pot and haffi carry them come ashore,” he pointed out. “Wi nuh have any help from the politician or anybody; we have to get some help otherwise. We don’t know where it’s coming from.”

Wolde Kristos led a team from Bluefields, Westmoreland, to support the cause.

“We are here to support the protest to have better access to beaches islandwide. What we find is more and more, the lands along the shore are being privatised and we the public are having less access to beaches and especially some of our best beaches,” Kristos pointed out.

He said court action by his group in Westmoreland has resulted in people now having unimpeded access to the beach, sensing that there is still hope for the general public.

Ras Ivey from Nyahbinghi House, Ras D from the Ancient Theocratic Order of the Nyahbinghi, and Fernando Hudson of Bull Bay, speaking on behalf of their respective groups, underlined the importance of the mission they were on.

“I an’ I come here today fi defend the rights of the Jamaican people pertaining to the beach because what I an’ I see going on is definitely the beginning of apartheid; apartheid camouflaged,” Ras Ivey said. “I an’ I cyaa siddung and gwaan like we dumb an’ gwaan like we deaf an’ mek wha happen inna South Africa happen here. Our hero say, I rather to die on yonder gallows than to be a slave; so right now ah deh suh it deh.”