LEFT: Panaromic view of the garbage-strewn Old Harbour Bay beach, with smoke billowing from a Jamaica Public Service power plant in the distance.
RIGHT: He looks like a fisherman in training, but the beach on which he stands may not be around for his children and their children. - Photos by Ian Allen/Staff Photographer

When the first Europeans came to the shores of Jamaica, they found pristine, turquoise waters lapping sandy beaches. They were awed by the sheer natural beauty of this fair isle. Some settled and lived with the native Tainos. Others returned to Europe and wrote glowingly about paradise on Earth.

Old Harbour Bay beach and its environment were a part of that paradise. However, the natives were annihilated. Africans, and subsequently East Indians, were brought in, and the engines of development were revved into action.

Now, after over 500 years, the idyllic landscape of the bay, as so many others, has deteriorated into a state of decay. Along the length and breadth of the beach, once surrounded by life-sustaining mangroves, are the telltale signs of neglect, uncleanness and environmental degradation.

Recently, a Sunday Gleaner team of photographer Ian Allen, and writer Paul H. Willams visited and captured the mess that is now Old Harbour Bay beach. The pictures tell the tale.