The summer of 2010 produced sea surface temperatures around Jamaica that exceeded the thermal tolerance of the island’s coral reefs for an extended period, triggering a bleaching event that was, at the time, the most severe recorded for Jamaican reefs in over a decade. The event was a preview of the conditions that climate scientists had been projecting would become more frequent as ocean temperatures rose.

As the north coast resort boom accelerated in early 2005, the Portland Bight Protected Area on Jamaica’s south-central coast offered a striking counterpoint: a large coastal and marine protected area where the governance frameworks that were failing spectacularly on the north coast had, imperfectly but meaningfully, produced a different outcome.

The second quarter of 1997 saw eco-tourism gaining currency in Jamaica’s tourism policy discussions as an alternative development model that could generate economic value from coastal and natural resources while reducing the physical pressure that mass resort development imposed.