JaBBEM pleads for Little Dunn’s River’s carvers

The Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM) says it is pleased with the issues emerging from the court case it has brought against the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) that seeks to allow public access to Little Dunn’s River in Ocho Rios, St Ann.

“The UDC has expressed a willingness to recognise the public’s indefeasible right to Little Dunn’s River in an ongoing legal proceeding. Little Dunn’s River will now hopefully become a public beach forever,” JaBBEM said in a release from its president, Dr Devon Taylor.

However, in its release, JaBBEM argued that, while it should be celebrating a win for Jamaica, it believed there were grave considerations that were being omitted from the UDC’s acknowledgement that are unsettling.

Taylor spoke up for a septuagenarian and several other occupiers of the land, stretching back decades, who he credits with enabling the space to become the popular spot it is today.

According to Taylor, Ras Vincent ‘Bongo’ Cheese is a 78-year old rastafarian who lived on Little Dunn’s River (formerly Cave River Beach) lands for decades before the UDC acquired the property. Bongo’s sight is now fading but his energy is unwavering. He and other Rastafarians carved out the pathways leading to the sea and river in the 1960s, unmasking gems and pruning the spaces into what is enjoyed today.

“His soul moves in harmony with the calming rhythm of the flowing waters and the strength of the trees he nurtured has come to define his resilience. The ground breathes his memories, utterances and beats of NyahBinghi. He is one with the land and his stories are so old, they inspire, empower, and foster a deep sense of community,” Taylor said.

“Most of them have lived and/or worked the land for decades. Together with others – History, Fabian, Norman, Clive, Ned, Kuminah, Rasai, Bobo, Lovina, Cordella, Abigale and Oreth – they have kept the cultural identity of this space alive.

“There would have been no Little Dunn’s River without the people who etched the flavour of our culture to a coastline that tells horror stories of 500 years of slavery, land dispossession, racial, social and economic exclusion of local communities.

“The system should not isolate the defenders of Little Dunn’s River from any recognition of the prescriptive rights of the people to access this beach. The prescriptive rights to Little Dunn’s River must equally protect the land rights of those on the land who have conserved it for the last 60-plus years. This is a national imperative.”

INJUSTICE

Taylor said “the injustice of displacing families like Bongo’s” would forever stain the fabric of the nation’s collective conscience.

“Is our government cognizant of this? Is this what the member of parliament for North East St Ann, the Honourable Matthew Samuda, and the Honourable Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness, whose portfolio encompasses the Coastal Law – the Beach Control Act of 1956 – want on their conscience; to be known as the dispossessors and destroyers of lives and livelihood?” Taylor questioned.

The lobbyist said it was the settlers’ legitimate and historical association with the river and beach that stand as irrefutable evidence in the court, and that is now subsequently poised to defeat the injustice of dispossession.

“It is the visibility of their economic activity on the lands at Little Dunn’s River that anchored our claim for rights in the court. It is their ancestral genetic imprinting that bound them to the land for generations and will now solidify our rights to that space.”

Taylor said JaBBEM wants to know if the nation will “remain silent and support the dispossession and economic exclusion of the defenders of Little Dunn’s River from communal land”.

He said they must be afforded the legal and moral right to remain, not as paid tenants but as custodians of the nation’s collective future for public beach access rights.

“The court may now be granting us a moment of redemption; an opportunity to unshackle ourselves and our collective consciousness from the grips of colonial and neoliberal thinking and finally do what is just.

There are no legal chains binding the Government of Jamaica from acknowledging the legitimate presence of black bodies rooted by the river and sea, whose settlement is a direct consequence of historic landlessness and limited economic opportunities.”

Taylor said no existing laws would be broken to affirm their land rights and enshrine a new, more just model of land tenure in the country. However, he said, inaction would “betray our own values and uphold the very inequalities we claim to reject”.

Taylor pleaded: “JaBBEM implores the authorities to embrace a collective cooperative land ownership and co-management model at Little Dunn’s River and uphold the social purpose of one of the last free spaces on the north coast.”

editorial@gleanerjm.com