By Kimone Witter
Amid the ongoing debate about beach access rights, the Jamaica Hotel & Tourist Association (JHTA) is calling for all stakeholders to unite behind a framework that ensures safe, equitable, and well-managed access to Jamaica’s most treasured natural asset.
JHTA President Christopher Jarrett says the question before Jamaica is not whether Jamaicans and visitors alike should access beaches, but rather how access is enabled in a manner that protects Jamaicans, visitors, and the coastlines.
Mr. Jarrett says the JHTA firmly rejects any characterisation of managed beach access as exclusionary and firmly supports meaningful public access to Jamaica’s beaches.
“The conversation that has existed has tended to move towards this ‘us against them’; this argument that there’s a form of plantation tourism and that it’s exclusionary and so on. And I respectfully disagree with that characterisation because the point I was making earlier is that tourism directly and indirectly supports…hundreds of thousands of Jamaican jobs and businesses. The conversation therefore needs to focus on finding solutions, practical solutions, rather than creating this division,” he argued.
Mr. Jarrett said, in contrast, unmanaged beaches have become spaces that are not freely accessible because they are governed by informal power structures, intimidation networks, and environmental degradation that effectively deny patrons the ability to enjoy them in safety and with dignity.
He said a well-designed management framework in accordance with applicable laws must be the basis on which access for Jamaican citizens and visitors is framed.
“Without management, in any situation…there’s going to be chaos. I mean, we have seen it in the example of Hellshire beach…where the shoreline and so on has been eroded. There’s just total disorder out there and the beach is no longer a reach beach for use,” he suggested.
In the meantime, the Jamaica Hotel & Tourist Association is to provide the government with comprehensive recommendations based on its review of the proposed Beach Access and Management Policy.
Following that, Mr. Jarrett said, the association expects the government to take on board all stakeholder concerns, with a view to arriving at consensus on the legal framework that protects all users of Jamaica’s coastline.
The JHTA has insisted that as user rights are clarified, the government must also preserve investor confidence and demonstrate to the world that Jamaica is a destination that takes its obligations to its citizens, visitors and investors seriously.
It said the reputational cost of continued inaction is one Jamaica cannot afford to pay.