7 mile beach in Negril, Jamaica is famous for it's white sand, calm warm waters and the resorts that call this beach home. It's also seemingly eroding away. An article in the Jamaica Gleaner spotlights how quickly the sand on this famous beach is heading out into Bloody Bay.
View Larger Map
When I was living on the beaches of Tampa Bay we used to have these problems. Every 3-4 years they'd dredge up a bunch of sand from the gulf and spray it on the beaches restoring them and costing the taxpayers of Florida millions. Now in Negril the same seems needed. Officials in Jamaica are saying it'll cost about 25 million in US dollars to resort the beaches and they're hoping that cost will be picked up by a hotel room tax being collected by the Government.
(Negril contributed around 25% US$2 billion gross earnings of Jamaica)
It seems Negril beaches need about 30 meters of sand pumped in to restore the beaches to where they were back in the 1970's. See, this is what happens to natural areas. Prior to the 70's Negril was a pretty sleepy town. With the boom of new resorts and visitors (like me) it's caused it's delicate balance from nature to be jeopardized.
Will the situation be resolved? I'm sure it will. Tourism dollars outweigh the cost of fixing the beaches.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.