Knolly Moses | Playing Long Mountain short

We found the last kilometre to Long Mountain almost majestic in Kingston’s growing urban sprawl. This wooded stretch brought solitude and sanity in our semi-lockdown. Runners and walkers enjoyed its stillness and embraced its challenge as we sought fitness.

Now it’s changing before our teary eyes. Ugly bulldozers chopped innocent trees that stood for more generations than developers have in their lineage. A beautiful elevation that offered stunning views of the Blue Mountains and its foothills is now scarred and bruised, bared of all its dignity.

Wise birds are packing up and leaving the neighbourhood, their tweets replaced with pre-construction clearing. They are taking with them any sense of decency the authorities should have had to protect their habitats. It wasn’t jungle, but the ficus and sweetwood trees on either side of the steeply winding road hugged our senses and encouraged meditation. These lands were watersheds designed to act as a buffer for the Mona Dam.

The ridiculous normal the pandemic handed us brought me there from Liguanea’s more confined spaces. The exercise community I joined communed with a piece of nature we hoped was sacrosanct. But developers saw profit and not the immense value this piece of real estate offered Kingston residents.

GREEN ROOFS

We who enjoyed its natural beauty saw how this greenness benefited all of Kingston. It reduced heat build-up and prevented soil erosion and air pollution in our increasingly threatened environment. Green roofs, as such spaces are called, are sorely needed in these times to reduce our stress, give restorative refuge and maintain our mental health. They help to remove pollution from cars, reduce ambient temperature, and retain a large percentage of rainwater. Most important, they produce oxygen we all need.

Some studies suggest green roofs boost social cohesion and relations because they create links among city inhabitants. That was clear in the respectful greetings between young and old, male and female, white collar and blue collar, who frequented the hill.

That walk or run up Long Mountain let us lucky ones disconnect from urban noise for a few minutes and improve our mood, helping those in whom we come into contact. Relaxing and reflecting in green spaces reduce the awful stress of city life that COVID-19 bared. No developer can put a price on that.

That Long Mountain road is tucked away in a quiet corner, away from Kingston’s blaring development. It improved our quality of life in ways developers clearly envied. The concrete that will replace trees will not to be attractive if some of what exists nearby is any indication.

The road will remain but its character is long gone. We feel deep sadness that many young Jamaicans may never know this even existed. They can never experience how sublime it was to run or walk up that hill with the trees rustling and the birds chirping, especially at dusk. They won’t see the dam peek through the trees or feel the cool breeze coming off of it. They would have lost one more piece of their precious legacy, and have no recourse but to do better in their time on this blessed piece of real estate.

Knolly Moses is a writer and CEO of Panmedia Limited, and secretary of the Advertising Agency Association of Jamaica.