Losing paradise - Negril's beaches eroding
It's probably Jamaica's finest: sparkling, fine white sand and dazzling orange sunsets, all year long. Welcome to the beaches of Negril, one of Jamaica's most natural tourist resorts, boasting seven miles of sand along parts of the coastline of Westmoreland and Hanover.
It's irie paradise to many, but years of use by locals and tourists, and natural occurrences are now taking their toll upon one of the island's most prized possessions. Negril's beaches are eroding rapidly, environmentalists perceive; much of it is due to storm surges, but also significantly to human activity.
"People in Negril argue that it's been gradual reduction over time, but our data seem to suggest that it's more due to Hurricane Michelle, and then Mitch and a whole bunch of them rapidly," says manager of coastal zoning and watershed management at the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), Ainsley Henry.
Hurricanes and storms, which have mainly affected the south coast, have been eroding the beaches, he underscores, as heavy winds create storm surges that drag sand from the beach into the marine environment.
No replenishing
Over time, the sand should have been replaced naturally, but there have been so many storms in such a short period oftime, not much replenishing has taken place.
"Unfortunately the sand is in the marine environment, and worse, if it's gone over the edge, that sand becomes lost," says Henry.
But storm surges caused by hurricanes aren't the only things responsible for the erosion of Negril's beaches. According to Henry, tourism has been a significant contributor.
"In Jamaica, in tourist places, we seem to believe that tourists all want perfection, for the soft white sand stretching as far as the eye can see and absolutely nothing in the water except for the water itself," he says.
Shrinking of seagrass
Some hotels, particularly large all-inclusives, have been guilty of removing seagrass beds from the ocean - a principal source of white sand for Negril beaches. They contribute somewhere in the region of 40 per cent of sand in Negril, studies show.
"If you look at aerial photos over the last couple of years ... you will see that there is a gradual shrinking of the seagrass area in Negril and that is a part of the reason why the sand budgets have shifted," Henry explains.
While hotels aren't the only ones guilty of removing seagrass beds, NEPA has been putting in measures to ensure the seagrass remains where developments emerge on the beach.
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