Jamaica's Iconic Hellshire Beach Going Fast; First The Reef Died, Then The Sand Washed Away

[hatrack]

KINGSTON, March 27 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Hellshire Beach, one of Jamaica's cultural icons, has appeared in countless documentaries, movies and travelogues about the island nation. The strip of sand, a half-hour drive from the capital and backed by seafood restaurants, is a weekend favourite for Kingstonians, a place to kick back and "lyme" – the local term for "chill".

But Hellshire Beach is fast disappearing. What once was a wide strip of sand in front of Aunt May's Fish Place has vanished so quickly that Kingstonians find themselves digging through old photos to make sure their memories aren't playing tricks on them.

One of them is Kamilah Taylor, a 30-year-old U.S. software engineer who grew up going to Hellshire. She remembers people riding horses and children playing on a wide expanse of beach. When she visited last year, she was shocked to see that much of it was gone. "To go from that to basically shops that look like they are on cliffs … it blew my mind how different it was. It was a totally different scene," said Taylor in a telephone interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Experts say that a combination of pollution and warmer temperatures linked to climate change have killed the once-thriving coral reefs offshore, allowing waves to pound the beach and wash away the sand. "I've never seen anywhere along the Jamaican coast change so significantly. ... It's a domino effect starting with the death of the reef," said Mona Webber, a marine ecologist and director of the University of the West Indies' Centre for Marine Sciences.

EDIT

http://news.trust.org/item/20170327010812-7x2ms/

[pscot]

1. A domino effect starting with the reef..

aka, tipping point.