public beach

By the summer of 1998, the all-inclusive resort model had become so dominant on Jamaica’s north coast that a significant proportion of the island’s premium beach frontage was now functionally inaccessible to Jamaicans who were not guests at the properties controlling it.

The third quarter of 1997 saw the Mammee Bay area of St. Ann become a focal point in the north coast beach access debate. Development that had proceeded along the bay’s frontage had left public access to the beach in a state that advocates characterised as functionally inadequate.

The second quarter of 1996 saw legal questions about the ownership and management of Jamaica’s foreshore — the area between the high and low water marks — come to prominence in the context of several resort development disputes.

The second quarter of 1995 marked, roughly, the midpoint of the decade that would define Jamaica’s beach access crisis. Environmental and community groups were beginning to compile the systematic evidence of access loss that had accumulated since the 1980s, and the pattern they were documenting was troubling.