The Jacob Taylor (Derby) Beach community has filed suit in the Supreme Court of Jamaica to stop its eviction and to initiate the process to secure formal recognition of its legal tenure over the beach land registered at Volume/Folio 1043/203. 

The land, used for generations for fishing and related livelihood activities, was gifted to the community in 1968. The matter is scheduled to be called before the Supreme Court today. The community is represented by attorneys Ms.

Cammesha Harrison of Harrison Law and Dr. Marcus Goffe of Goffe Law.

On August 17, 2026, the National Environment and Planning Agency’s regulator, the Natural Resources Conservation Authority (NRCA), posted notices to quit on the doors of several Jacob Taylor (Derby) Beach community members — all licensed fisherfolk — giving them just one month to vacate and surrender their workplaces.

This eviction would inflict serious harm on a community that holds not only land rights but also prescriptive rights to the beach and adjoining sea under Jamaican common law, built up over decades of continuous, open use. The community and its legal team view the NRCA’s action as a disproportionate and unjust exercise of state power against people who have worked this beach and land decades before the agency existed. This represents a stark disregard for the rights and dignity of the Jacob Taylor (Derby) fishing community.

The claim filed in the Supreme Court asks the Court to:

1. Grant an interim injunction restraining the NRCA and its agents from carrying out any eviction, displacement, or destruction of property at Jacob Taylor (Derby) Beach;

2. Grant leave for judicial review of the NRCA’s claimed authority to act as landlord or owner of the Jacob Taylor (Derby) Beach land (Vol/Folio: 1043/203) with power to issue notices to quit; and

3. Add the Attorney General — as Chief Law Officer of the Crown and principal legal adviser to the Government — as a party to the proceedings.

The Derby Beach community has fished this beach and occupied its surrounding lands for generations, predating the Beach Control Act of 1956.

The Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JaBBEM) has joined the community’s effort to have both its land rights and its prescriptive rights formally recognised and protected under Jamaican law, guarding against any future attempt at displacement or dispossession.

The community and JaBBEM view the Government of Jamaica’s action as an attempt to extinguish an accrued legal right without due process, and unequivocally condemn it.