Beach policy under fire
JaBBEM accuses gov’t of ‘dispossession’
Published:Friday | March 27, 2026 | 12:07 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
The Government’s proposed Beach Access and Management Policy has drawn sharp criticism from the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM), which contends that the framework entrenches, rather than dismantles, the colonial barriers that continue to restrict Jamaicans’ access to their coastline.
In a statement, Dr Devon Taylor, JaBBEM’s president, said the organisation “formally and unequivocally rejects” the proposal after reviewing the framework outlined in the prime minister’s contribution to the 2026-7 Budget Debate. “After a careful and studied review, JaBBEM concludes that the policy reinforces rather than breaks away from the historical systems of colonial and capitalist dispossession that have denied Jamaican people of sovereign access to their own coastline,” Taylor said.
The group acknowledged that the Government had recognised the need to replace the Beach Control Act of 1956 but argued that the new framework still failed to secure the rights of ordinary Jamaicans. “Jamaica’s beaches, cays, rivers, and foreshore are the birthright and inherent rights of every Jamaican,” Taylor said, urging the State to “withdraw this policy and restore full, unconditional, and inalienable public access to the shore”.
The criticism follows Prime Minister Andrew Holness’s announcement in Parliament that the Government had formally tabled the new beach access policy as part of efforts to modernise legislation governing coastal areas. “A planning issue which has been contentious for several decades is beach access,” Holness said. “Every administration has committed to creating a policy framework to improve and increase Jamaicans’ access to beaches.” He added that the existing legislation – the Beach Control Act and its amendments – does not adequately address contemporary access concerns. “The Beach Control Act of 1956 and its amendment in 1973 did not adequately address beach-access issues and will have to be replaced, and the new policy is the first step in that direction,” he told Parliament.
CONDITIONAL PRIVILEGE
JaBBEM, however, argues that the proposal treats access as a conditional privilege rather than a fundamental right. “The policy treats access to public beaches as contingent to compliance of regulations rather than as an inherent right,” the organisation said. “It frames access as a privilege granted by the state or conditionally provided by a licensee, exercising the language of permission rather than rights.”
Among the group’s strongest objections is the proposed licensing structure for dozens of public beaches. “The listing of 67 public beaches under a licensing and management framework does not constitute stewardship. Rather, it represents enclosure,” JaBBEM said. “The foreshore is vested in the Crown for the public’s benefit. It should not be treated as a commodity.”
The organisation also criticised provisions that could bolster hotel-operated beach-pass systems, warning that such arrangements would force Jamaicans to pay for access to land that is, by law, public. “A Jamaican working-class family that lacks the means to purchase a beach pass (a required permit) is not experiencing a minor inconvenience. They are undergoing the dispossession of their inherited rights to access the coast, a situation endorsed by state policy,” the statement said.
Holness has maintained that the policy aims to clarify definitions of coastal spaces – including the foreshore and backshore – while outlining legislative changes and planning rules to guide future development and public access. But JaBBEM warns that several provisions, such as those allowing artificial beach construction or exclusive licensing for developments like overwater bungalows, could accelerate coastal privatisation.
“The sea belongs to Jamaica. The beach belongs to Jamaica. The foreshore belongs to Jamaica. No licensing framework changes that fact,” Taylor said.
The movement is now urging civil society groups, fishing communities, environmental advocates, and legal experts to join its call for the Government to withdraw the proposal in full. “JaBBEM does not advocate for amendments. We advocate for withdrawal,” the organisation said, calling on authorities to “return to the drawing board with all the Jamaican people at the centre”.