Carolyn Cooper | Who is guarding our beaches?

Last weekend, I was in Sao Paulo to give a talk on the globalisation of reggae. It was part of a series of events for a riveting exhibition on Jamaican music that was first mounted in Paris last year. Next month, King Jammy will be a guest of nuff honour.

I'm hoping the exhibition will eventually come 'home'. Many of the artefacts belong abroad. They are owned by non-Jamaicans who often value our culture much more than we do. Foreigners cleverly collect what some of us would dismiss as pure rubbish - all like dancehall posters.

Thanks to the foresight of an exceptional Jamaican, Maxine Walters, several of these posters are on display in the exhibition. For more than 30 years, she's been collecting street art. A fraction of her massive treasure trove has been published in her book, Serious T'ings A Go Happen, which vividly tells the story of dance events across the island. Leasho Johnson's funky dancehall installation in the exhibition beautifully complements the posters.

On my way home from Sao Paulo, I visited Rio. It's a truly spectacular city of disturbing contrasts: the infamous favelas on the hillsides and the luxurious neighbourhoods spread out on the bay. I made the mistake of taking a tour through one of the favelas. I did wonder about the ethics of turning poverty into entertainment for tourists. I should have followed my instincts. It was an unsettling experience.

As we passed Copacabana beach on a tour of another side of Rio, I asked our guide, Leo, if Brazilians had to pay to go to the beach. From Leblon to Ipanema, Copacabana and Leme, it's practically one long stretch of white sand. Approximately 7.5 kilometres, right in the city! The tour guide looked at me as if I was crazy. Pay? All you have to pay for is transportation to the beach, where the rich and poor share common ground.

 

ALL-EXCLUSIVE HOTELS

 

What a contrast to Jamaica! Here, the majority of us are excluded from beautiful beaches. Those are too good for us. It's tourists and wealthy Jamaicans who enjoy the best of this island. All-exclusive hotels fence off prime beach property. Security guards patrol the borderlines preventing access to the beach. This is illegal. Hoteliers don't own the beaches. But they do their best to prevent the natives from straying on to the beach.

It's the Queen of England who owns Jamaica's beaches. According to the 1956 Beach Control Act, "All rights in and over the foreshore of this island and the floor of the sea are hereby declared to be vested in the Crown." But even that outdated act does acknowledge the fact that the rights of the public have to be protected against selfish private-sector interests.

Hotel owners, for example, can apply for a licence to operate 'private' beaches. But the act makes it absolutely clear that "licence shall not be granted under this section unless the Authority has certified that the issue of the licence is not likely to conflict with the public interest in regard to fishing, bathing, recreation or the protection of the environment".

 

PUBLIC INTEREST VS PRIVATE INVESTMENT

 

This brings us right back to the new Puerto Seco Beach. Does the lease of this public beach to a private developer conflict with the public interest? Kenny Benjamin, CEO of the Guardsman Group, is jealously guarding his multimillion-dollar investment in his Puerto Seco Beach complex. Who is guarding the rights of citizens?

Residents of Discovery Bay know they have to depend on themselves. And us! On Saturday, July 28, at 8 a.m., community groups will be holding a public meeting in the square. This is what the notice says: "Our beaches are going to TOURISM & BIG BUSINESS. Government must stop this NOW! Peach Beach MUST stay a public beach. FIGHT NOW or LOSE ALL OUR BEACHES FOREVER!!!"

Residents fear that Peach Beach will be appropriated by private-sector interests, just like Puerto Seco Beach and an adjacent beach known to locals as Members' Beach. Formerly open to the community, that beach has already been taken over by Kenny Benjamin for development as a dolphin cove.

Discovery Bay community groups seem to be taking lessons from the courageous activists in Portland who won the protracted battle to keep beautiful Winnifred Beach open to the public. It's an ongoing struggle for beach access. And we certainly can't depend on politicians to defend the rights of citizens.

'Politricksters' are often in bed with the private sector. Or their vision just isn't sharp enough. Last month, at the Calabash International Literary Festival, Delano Seiveright proudly told me that the Government had identified 10 public beaches for upgrading. That's not even one beach per parish.

What is needed is a radical revision of the 1956 Beach Control Act. No private individual should be allowed to lease a beach and exclude members of the public who can't afford exorbitant entry fees. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognises the right to leisure. In Jamaica, that must include the right to enjoy a day at the beach.

- Carolyn Cooper, PhD, is a specialist on culture and development. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com.