THE EDITOR, SIR:
I LIVE in Fort George, St. Mary (outside of Annotto Bay). I am a 43-year-old single mother of seven, and I work as a farmer.
In November 1988, I was uprooted from where I lived near the Grays Inn sugar factory, and relocated to my present location in Fort George, on the edge of the St. Mary Banana Estates next to the Pencar River. After my relocation, I began to pay for the title to this land (6.1 acres), and more than four years ago I completed the payment. However, despite my pleas, I have still not been given any title of ownership, and this is a source of great frustration and insecurity for me and my family. As this goes unresolved, other circumstances are literally destroying the value of the land for me.
Roughly four years ago, heavy rains washed away the bridge on the road to Fort George, for which repairs have only recently begun. For four years, cars have driven across my land so as not to cross the river at a low point. This significantly reduced the amount of my land that could be used, and I feel that I am entitled to compensation for having lost my land to this unsanctioned use of it as a thorough-fare.
Further, the fact that cars frequently passed right next to my field increased my vulnerability to praedial thieves. I routinely lost my crops to thieves who travelled to this new road, and in the fall I had a devastating theft of several of my pigs. With this road there it was virtually impossible to police my land.
The shifting river bed of the Pencar is another source of much worry for me, as reckless and illegal sand-mining is changing the course of the river. For 13 years, I have watched the river bed continue to widen and eat into my land, carrying away fruit trees that I have planted and wire that I have put up. It now threatens to undermine the foundations of my small piggery in which I have invested from my modest savings to build over the years. This illegal sand-mining in the riverbed cannot continue, and though I have gone to the police to report it, it continues to go on unchecked. It has reached a point where some rock baskets are badly and urgently needed to keep the river from encroaching onto my land any further.
In short, I am desperate that some action be taken to give me record of my ownership, and to protect my land against the forces that are currently destroying my family's ability to earn a living from it.
I am, etc.,
JOYCE WALKER
Annotto Bay P.O.
St. Mary
