The waters of the Blue Lagoon change colour throughout the day, from glistening turquoise to deep royal blue, depending on the height of the sun.
Fed by a freshwater mineral spring that meets sandy beaches as it opens out to the sea, the luminous pool has become popular with holidaymakers and honeymooners.
At one time, it was also an idyllic spot where locals in this pocket of northern Jamaica could learn to swim.
Local man Wilbourn Carr has fond memories of the place, which he used to access via paths through the rainforest.
The Blue Lagoon is a culturally significant site renowned for its natural beauty, but public access has been restricted for years.
“Every member of my family up to the smallest child has been to the Blue Lagoon because of the impression it made on me,” he told Dateline.
Alex Moore-Minott, an Indigenous traditional healer from nearby Portland, once loved the tranquillity here.
“[The Blue Lagoon] is a place of extreme spiritual and cultural importance,” he told Dateline.
“People would visit from very early in the morning before work, before their hectic schedule began, and it would be a source of calmness, a sort of meditation space.”
But access to the lagoon and beach has become increasingly restricted.
Over the last few decades, the 238 acres of land surrounding the pool and beach have been sold to private owners.
In addition, the Jamaica National Heritage Trust (NHT) — the government body designated to preserve and protect the country’s cultural heritage sites — declared the Blue Lagoon temporarily closed for maintenance in August 2022.
Without community consultation or a clear timeline from the NHT or local government about when it will reopen, a tall fence was erected across the public road.
A large blue fence was erected across the public access road in 2022 and remains in place today.
Locals are devastated.
“It’s the most beautiful coastline in Jamaica, which the public should have access to,” Carr said.
“But private owners have now locked us out.”
Dateline contacted the NHT to ask about the public road closure and lack of public access to the lagoon but has not received a response.
Since June 2024, one private landowner has permitted public entry to the lagoon between 9am and 5pm.
But locals say the arrangement is insecure, and there’s nothing to stop them from restricting access at their discretion.
A problem throughout Jamaica
The dwindling beach access experienced by Carr and his community is a common story across the island.
It’s what prompted Dr Devon Taylor to found the Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM) — an organisation campaigning for the recognition and protection of beach access rights for all Jamaicans.
JaBBEM has launched a series of legal cases against the government, private landowners and hotel companies to secure the public’s rights to access the island’s beaches and waterways.
Carr is one of the plaintiffs in the Blue Lagoon case launched by JaBBEM, which goes to trial at the Portland Parish Court on 25 November.
JaBBEM founder Devon Taylor (far-right), Attorney Marcus Goffe (in black suit), Wilbourn Carr (in red tie) and Alex Moore-Minott (red shirt) with other plaintiffs from the Blue Lagoon case in Portland.
Jamaica has around 795km of shoreline, of which around 30 per cent is sandy beaches.
But the Jamaican public can access less than 1 per cent of them, JaBBEM says, due to the rapid expansion of both privately owned beach-front properties and all-inclusive resorts, many of which offer exclusive beach access to guests. Dateline has not been able to substantiate this figure.
“Jamaicans who for generations could just walk across the road and into the sea, can’t do it anymore,” Taylor said.
JaBBEM is also supporting a Rastafari community living around Bob Marley Beach, where public access is threatened by a private land sale.
The beach is named after the Jamaican reggae legend who often visited there and whose eldest son, Ziggy Marley, supports the campaign.
Bob Marley’s eldest son Ziggy Marley has shown support JaBBEM’s public beach access campaign on his social media pages.
‘Discrimination tied to race’
Marcus Goffe, a human rights lawyer representing JaBBEM and community members in several beach access cases, said that at the heart of the issue is a colonial-era law that prioritises private landowners and foreign investors over ordinary Jamaicans.
Under the Beach Control Act of 1956, the Jamaican public have no inherent rights to bathe, walk or fish at the island’s beaches. The owner of a beachfront property maintains all rights for the access and use of the beach.
The British arrived in Jamaica 1655 and used enslaved Africans to farm sugarcane on the island. Jamaica gained its independence from Britian in 1962, but like Australia, retains the British monarch as its head of state. Many colonial-era laws remain intact to this day.
The Beach Control Act is one such law, and according to Goffe, it’s part of a long and continuing history of inequality and dispossession.
“For us, the discrimination around beach access rights is tied to race,” he said.
“The Act emphasises the rights of landowners … Historically, they were the ones who were the slave masters, who were the colonisers.”
After emancipation in 1838, former slaves did not receive any land or reparations, which continues to disadvantage their descendants today, Taylor says.
“What we have experienced and endured over time is being second-class citizens in our country in terms of the rights to resources, in terms of the rights to land.”
Taylor has previously called for overseas tourists holidaying in Jamaica to boycott hotels and resorts on the island which deny access to locals, according to media reports.
‘You may not see a black Jamaican in the sea’
Jamaica’s beaches have increasingly become segregated spaces reflecting this inherent inequality and disadvantage, Taylor adds.
If a private owner or hotel permits access to locals, they often charge exorbitant fees, he said.
“Our socioeconomic status is really not one that will allow a family of five to go to the beach twice, three times a week.
“[A tourist] could spend seven days on a beach in a resort and never experience the culture and the life of the country. You may not even see a black Jamaican in the sea.
“You may have a server, someone who will care for your room, and at the end of the day when they work their eight hours, they can’t take off their clothes and go and swim in the sea to relax,” he added.
“They have to walk through that gate and leave.”
A wall in another location near Mammee Bay beach was built after the land adjoining the beach was sold for hotel development in 2020, blocking off access to the paths used by locals.
Locals vs luxury tourism
Locals fear their beach access will become even more restricted as visitor numbers grow and more luxury resorts and hotels appear along the coastline.
More than four million tourists visited Jamaica in 2023.
“I’m right there with Wilbourn in expressing my fear [over] the rapid privatisation of very important, sacred and therapeutic spaces,” Moore-Minott said.
JaBBEM have organised a number of protests to campaign for beach access rights to be legally recognised for all Jamaicans.
The government has promised to increase beaches designated for public use.
Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced plans in March to upgrade nine free-to-access community beaches across the island.
“Others talk about beach access, we actually give people beaches that they can access,” Holness said during the country’s 2024-2025 budget debate.
Holness also promised to table comprehensive beach access legislation in parliament.
“We haven’t seen it,” Taylor said.
“Policies have to be put in place and laws have to be written.”
Dateline asked the prime minister’s office for an update on their legislative plans and to confirm how many beaches were currently accessible to Jamaicans but received no response.
Goffe said even if more beaches are designated as ‘public’ the Beach Control Act means their access remains uncertain.
“The public’s rights are not secure,” he said.
If wholesale change is not yet on offer, Goffe hopes the beach access cases currently before the courts will at least secure access for the communities he’s representing.
“We want the public’s rights to access those spaces to be endorsed… and bind future landowners to respect those public rights,” he said.
Carr, who will be attending the Blue Lagoon trial this month, hopes the case is one important step toward a future where the Jamaican people are no longer locked away from their coast.
“We cannot afford to lose that access … and this is not just for Portland, it is being spread all over Jamaica and it makes us very, very scared.”
