Activists are challenging colonial-era law and demanding ‘free, legal, unfettered, forever rights’ to use beaches

• Jamaica’s beach access crisis: ‘We shouldn’t be forced to fight for what is already ours’

Campaigners in Jamaica are heading to court next week to try to prevent the government from cutting off access to more of their beaches.

They argue that ceding their shorelines to big hotel chains enriches private investors and benefits tourists and outsiders while depriving Jamaicans who depend on the sea for their livelihoods, leisure and health.

Activists argue business model is ‘plantation tourism’ designed to benefit elite and disadvantage most Jamaicans

• Campaigners go to court to fight privatisation of Jamaican coast

Devon Taylor remembers when the Mammee Bay shoreline in St Ann, Jamaica, was filled with children frolicking in the ocean after school, fishers haggling with locals over the price of their daily catch and craft vendors carving souvenirs under almond trees.

“I grew up on Mammee Bay,” Taylor says. He recalls fetching seawater in bottles for his grandmother when she was no longer able to go to the beach, learning to swim in the shallows, and watching generations of fishers cast their nets. “That beach raised us. It fed us.”