The opening quarter of 2000 offered a moment for stock-taking on Jamaica’s coastal development trajectory. The decade of the 1990s had transformed the north coast’s resort landscape; the institutional framework that would manage the next decade was still taking shape.

The final quarter of 1999 saw the gazettal of the Portland Bight Protected Area, a designation that represented Jamaica’s most significant coastal conservation commitment of the decade. The 187,000-acre protected area encompassed the island’s largest mangrove system and extensive coastal wetlands.